


Life Note

by Sporadic_Writer



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sporadic_Writer/pseuds/Sporadic_Writer
Summary: Thank you to all the amazing reviewers who helped me to write this story--and gave me the impetus to write one more chapter.  The story will now end at 7 chapters, and the rating has changed from M to E.1) To save a life, you must know the person's name and face.2) You must write their name within 6 minutes from the time of death.3) If you write the name of a person who is still living, nothing will happen.4) If you write the name of a living person who will die within 2 hours, then they will live.Huh?  What a weird notebook.  Did someone make this as a prank?  Light read the rules again before carefully checking each page.  He couldn't find anything else.  He looked at the back, but it was perfectly blank.  Then he checked the front, and this time, he caught sight of a silvery script he hadn't noticed before.  He tilted it until the words caught the sun's light.He read them aloud: “Life Note.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe the last time I posted something was last year in April, but then again, I've been working on this new story since December, maybe a little earlier.

**Six Years Earlier**

 

The mother held her crying daughter tightly in her arms, tucking her chin onto the smooth black head, and wished she had a third arm to pull her son to her. She watched the vertical line of her son's spine flex as he stared distantly at the quickly filling hole.

“Shh, shh,” she whispered desperately. She rubbed the cold ring on her finger, trying to bring some warmth back to the polished gold. Trying to bring her husband back.

Her son's head jerked, and then he turned around suddenly, enveloping them in his sturdy arms (he felt so grown up, like a man, she thought amidst the static in her mind). Her son dropped a hand on his sister's tear-stained face.

“I'll take care of you. I promised,” came her son's muffled vow.

 

 

**Three Years Earlier**

 

Yagami Light walked past the neat rows of headstones. He stared down at the ground and watched his feet to make sure he didn't kick any pebbles onto any resting places. He checked his watch, but he still had time. He had told his mother that he would visit his father's grave after prep school, and she wouldn't expect him back for another 20 minutes.

He turned onto the proper row and searched until he found the monument they had picked out many months before. He crouched down before it and mindlessly read and reread the information engraved there.

He wondered if his father had been aware enough to know that he was dying, if his father had any regrets, if his father had really passed peacefully, as the doctor had claimed.

The weather had been incredibly damp lately, and Light frowned when he realized that the small patch of discoloration on the stone was the beginning of moss growing. He hunted for a handkerchief before remembering that he didn't carry one past third grade.

He slid the sleeve of his jacket over his hand and attempted to rub away the grey-green specks.

“Ah, fuck!” Light yelped in shock when something hit his arm. He jerked back, overbalancing and landing on his butt, and self-preservation helped him to scuttle back far from the alien object.

Heart pounding a soundtrack through his body, Light told himself to stop being pathetic. Cemeteries were not haunted in real life, and any actual zombie or undead thing would hardly stoop to throwing things at their victims.

Light thumped his chest gently until he felt his cardiac rhythm get back to its resting stage. Then he cautiously leaned forward to see what had hit him.

It was just a notebook.

He picked it up and examined it further. It looked like a garden-variety notebook, with a black cover and white pages inside, but it felt much different as he smoothed his fingers across it. He hunted for a more precise descriptor in his head, and finally, it came to him. The notebook felt like the same baby softness he had marveled at when he first met his newborn sister. He had never felt any texture quite like that since then...until now.

He flipped through the pages to see if anyone had written inside it. Perhaps he would find some kind of identification and be able to return it, but not before giving the owner a lecture on not throwing things around.

The notebook was empty of words aside from the inside front cover which was covered with dense lines of writing. Most of it was obscured by something like dirt, but Light squinted at them in the grey afternoon light of mid-fall and made out the first four sentences:

 

_1) To save a life, you must know the person's name and face._

 

_2) You must write their name in the LifeNote within 6 minutes from the time of death._

 

_3) If you write the name of a person who is still living, nothing will happen._

 

_4) If you write the name of a living person who will die within 2 hours, then they will live._

 

Huh? What a weird notebook. Did someone make this as a prank? Light read the rules again before carefully checking each page. He couldn't find anything else. He looked at the back, but it was perfectly blank. Then he checked the front, and this time, he caught sight of a silvery script he hadn't noticed before. He tilted it until the words caught the sun's light.

He read them aloud: “Life Note.”

 

 

The sweat that had broken out on her forehead now felt cold and slimy. She rolled her shoulders back, trying to alleviate a tension that was always there. She blew a sustained breath out before she finally sighed. “Call it, please,” Dr. Eileen Chang said, overly polite as was her habit during such times.

“Time of death: 9:15 PM,” her colleague stated somberly.

The team began cleaning and organizing the equipment to leave it ready for the next emergency room surgery. Their postures were bowed, and more than one word turned the air blue underneath tense lips.

Dr. Chang started walking out, the thought of hot water and sharp soap overpowering the smell of bloody exertion. Fruitless exertion. God damn it. Her patient had died.

Her preoccupation nearly led her to miss the nearly silent gasp of breath, but Dr. Liang's loud cry of shock called her back so abruptly that she nearly slammed into the counter by the door way as she rushed back in.

Their patient, a 10-year old girl who had been dying (who had died!) from anaphylactic shock, was breathing again, and the machines hooked to monitor her heart beat and pulse began thundering the renewed thread of data.

“Oh my God!” Dr. Chang breathed.

 

 

He wrote rapidly on the old ivory pages with a careful hand:

 

… recovers from pneumonia with no more than a minor lingering cough that disappears after five days.

 

… recovers from lung cancer, which stays in remission until the end of her life.

 

… recovers from his gun shot wound with no complications.

 

… recovers from his knife wound with no complications.

 

Light sat back for a moment and marveled at the number of worthy lives he had managed to save within a few days. It was a shame, the limits of the Life Note, but the gift of life in any quantity was well worth it. He just regretted the people who had died as he was still figuring out the meaning of the Life Note rules.

Light flipped to the beginning page where his doubtful handwriting first began recording names:

 

… recovers from a gun shot wound.

 

… recovers from second degree burn injuries.

 

… recovers from stomach cancer.

 

He mouthed the words from the second rule. _You must write their name in the Life Note within_ _6_ _minutes_ _from the time of death._ He had, hah, religiously followed the rule three nights ago, only to be disappointed that the woman he had saved from domestic violence had later died from an infection she had gotten post-surgery.

Sitting stunned at his desk, feeling betrayed by something unnamed and filled with humiliation at being reduced to a child who had just learned Santa Claus wasn't real, had led him to snatch up the Life Note and prepare himself to tear it into shreds. If he knew who had created the ill-conceived prank, he would have been hard put not to tear them into shreds too.

Sayu had been a godsend when she knocked on his bedroom door, loudly requesting that he help her survive editing her essay. Editing became revising, and he lectured her idly, “You're still not giving enough context. If you don't add more details to flesh out your point, then the meaning is completely unclear, and people can interpret it however they want. That's not a good persuasive essay.”

Light had felt the epiphany echo through his mind even as he restarted the laborious task of rereading his sister's draft. Once he understood, he had, oddly enough, become more at ease with the mysterious artifact. He could access its power, of course, but he would have to jump through some hoops. In this case, he needed to include the specifics of each individual's recovery from their fatality. That was simple enough.

 

 

Amane Misa gave one last brilliant smile, the polished crimson of her lips lighting off her pearly whites, and she checked that her pose made her look sufficiently cute and sexy before stopping the video recorder.

Misa glanced at her Hello Kitty clock and tried to gauge whether she would have time to start editing and compiling her video clips before her mother called her down for dinner. She could smell the aroma of stew coming up the stairs, and she could hear the familiar sound of her father hunting for the bottle opener he was perpetually losing. She wondered if she could cajole her father into giving her a sip of the pear cider he liked to drink on the rare Saturdays that he took off.

The doorbell rang, and Misa brightened up. It had to be Takuya-kun, the cute boy who had promised to bring over some of his mom's homegrown tomatoes. She reflexively checked her teeth in the mirror before she clattered down the stairs, forgetting that her mom would scold her for being so noisy when they had neighbors with a colicky baby.

All thoughts of Takuya-kun erased themselves when she rounded the corner of their living room to the front entrance and heard the screams of terror before seeing her father's collapsed body.

“Shut up, bitch! I just want the money!” the intruder screamed, spittle flying and crazed eyes growing wide with panic. “Stop screaming, and bring me your purse!”

Misa's mother continued to scream as she struggled futilely to hold her husband upright as he slumped from the growing blood loss.

Like in a slow nightmare, Misa padded closer to the carnage and thought dimly of the new stockings she was wearing. How would she get the blood out? They were silky and white and would never be the same.

Get a knife, stupid, a practical voice screamed, a knife! She turned and ran into the kitchen and yanked out the largest knife in the butcher block.

“Leave us alone!” The panic rising past her shock strangled her voice into a whisper, but the intruder jerked to face her, and she waved the knife at him, hoping desperately that he would just go!

The man stared at her, and she stared back, the two opposing sides struck into a tense silence that rose and grew around them. Then time returned.

Something like sanity flickered in the man's eyes. “Fuck, fuck it,” he said, backing away and running into the night.

Misa sank to her knees in watery relief. Then she remembered. “Daddy!” she cried.

 

 

Light completed the last page of his college test prep workbook, checked his answers against the answer key in the back (mostly to identify where the answer key was wrong), and pulled out his laptop.

For the past few days, he had been following the health of a minor politician who had regularly espoused ideas that Light valued, and if Light were old enough to vote and in the correct prefecture, he would have supported the man. It had been disheartening to find out that the man planned on withdrawing from the mayoral race because he had suffered from a stroke and was worried about another one hitting. According to various news agencies, it was a worry that came true early this morning; he had been rushed to the hospital, which had put a prompt gag order on his health status.

Fortunately, Light had managed to befriend the man's middle school aged granddaughter on Twitter and had been allowed to follow her, giving him access to useful updates like “Gramps is in the hospital again. Prayers please!” and “Hospital food sucks. We need a revolution!”

The granddaughter's latest update, a few minutes ago, was not promising but more informative: “It looks bad, guys. Fuck.”

Light opened the Life Note to the bookmark he'd left to more easily find the page he was currently filling. He looked for a long moment at the politician's campaign photograph, and then he wrote the politician's full name, followed by a short description of his recovery from the stroke.

He opened the bag of barbecue chips he'd brought up earlier from the kitchen and crunched contentedly on a handful while he waited to see news of his good deed coming to fruition.

After twenty minutes, when refreshing the page didn't show a new Twitter update, Light googled the politician's name for the most recent articles. The top article in the list of results solemnly declared, “Local Politician Passes From Meningitis.”

What—? Light's reading stuttered to a halt, as he tried to make sense of the article's content.

 

_“It was all very sudden,” Kobayashi-san's wife, Misao-san, shared in an impromptu press conference. “He felt feverish and nauseous all night before he collapsed, and we called for an ambulance. I thought it would turn out to be the flu, but the doctors found out it was meningitis.”_

 

_Chikao-san, the eldest son, wrapped a comforting arm around his mother as she paused to drink from a water bottle provided by a kind nurse. “It's ironic. We thought it would be another stroke, and actually, the doctors did say that he suffered a stroke during the intake process, but still, it was meningitis in the end.” He shook his head, with confusion and disbelief clear on his face, so similar to his deceased father's._

 

Disbelief and hysteria warred in Light's own mind as he fought to make sense of it all. He searched the list of results for older articles first reporting Kobayashi-san's collapse. He skimmed several before he resigned himself to the fact that he had jumped to conclusions since none of the articles verified their announcements that Kobyashi-san had specifically suffered another stroke when he was admitted into the hospital.

But, Light's eyes narrowed in thought, Kobayashi-san did suffer from a stroke in addition to the meningitis, and he had survived the stroke, as Light had written in the Life Note, even if only to die from an unexpected illness...

For the rest of that night, Light found himself heavily preoccupied with further exploring the powers of the Life Note. His heart pounded alongside the buzzing in his ears. What exactly were the possibilities of the Life Note?

 

 

“Can you believe this crap?” Dr. Watanabe scoffed as he threw down a rustle of papers.

“What?” Head Nurse Sato asked wearily, eyes half-closed as she desperately inhaled a large cup of thick coffee, cut with just a dash of cream.

“People seriously believe that the dead can come back to life, that's what,” he stabbed a finger at the front page, emblazoned with the triumphant words “The Savior is Here: New Wave of Miracles!”

Ichika-chan, a candy stripper, came in with a box of fresh bagels and doughnuts and overheard the last bit of conversation. “The Savior, huh? I would believe it sooner if I didn't wonder about the source. After all, the same magazine thinks that Hideki Ryuga is the antichrist in disguise, didn't you know, that's how he gets hordes of screaming fans at his concerts. Nothing to do with his pretty face.”

“But that's the thing,” Dr. Watanabe said loudly, throwing up his arms. “This isn't some tabloid trash! This is my copy of _Asahi Times_. Even regular publications are getting into it, and I know this journalist. She isn't the type to jump on the bandwagon. It looks like she has some hardcore evidence here from a professional investigation.”

Head Nurse Sato looked unconvinced. “People just want to believe what they want to believe. You can see patterns anywhere with anything if you try. Dr. Nakamura had a patient whose heart re-started after literally dying on the operation table. These so-called miracles happen, but it's not the first time a patient has beat the odds, and it won't be the last time. Anyway, who knows how competent Dr. Nakamura was? For all we know, she was giving up a little too early, and that poor man hadn't really died yet.”

They laughed together heartily before their chuckles grew tinged with guilt at their unfair mockery.

Head Nurse Sato stopped laughing first and began fiddling with her empty coffee cup. “Anyway, that's not the first patient she's had that's come back. And she's not the only one talking about these miracles happening. Honestly, it sounds like Tohoku Hospital has some kind of lucky epidemic.”

 

 

The phone rang, and the young man calmly picked up on the third ring. Too slow, and often they would hang up. Too fast, and they would often stumble through their turmoil and regret ever calling.

“Hello, thank you for calling our hotline. I am here to listen and help you connect to the resources you need to process your grief.”

“Hello,” the gravelly voice sounded from the other end. “I, uh, I don't usually call these hotlines; I just don't find them helpful. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be rude. It's just...I don't know what to do.”

“That's completely understandable,” Light said, getting ready to set his caller at ease. “Why don't you just tell me why you're calling, and we'll just go from there?” He settled back in his chair, pen and notebook at the ready. It was so nice to have enclosed cubicles to preserve their callers' privacy and comfort.

“My nephew is dying of cancer, and my wife is taking it really hard. But I feel like a terrible person because I don't—I don't think it's a bad thing.” The man stopped talking, and Light could feel him waiting for judgment with bated breath.

Light chose his words carefully. He didn't want to make a misstep. People in their grief could be so complicated and so contradictory. “I can tell that you care deeply about your wife, and you don't want to hurt her. But that's why you called this hotline. You can tell me what you think. I'm not here to judge.”

“Yeah, yeah, you're right. Okay, the thing is that Hiroshi is an asshole. He made my sister-in-law's life hell, pressuring her for money to feed his gambling addition, and she can't say no to him; he's her son. But my wife doesn't know how to help, and he's even forced us to give him money. He keeps telling us that the yakuza would break his kneecaps and cut him into pieces if he doesn't make up the money he owes. It goes on like this year after year. He disappears for months and then comes back to beg for money. And a big part of me is thrilled he won't be a problem anymore.”

Light waited for the man to calm himself, listened to the shuddering breaths slow, and then he started the next part of the conversation. “Would you call yourself a reasonable man?”

“Huh? Well, yeah, I think so. I mean, I tried to help him. I didn't complain about the money the first few times, and I tried to get him a job, but he just doesn't want to help himself.”

Light nodded and put his pen down. He wouldn't need it. Then he told the man what he had told several others who had called him. “Then you don't have to feel bad. You're not a bad man. Sometimes life can be unfair. But sometimes, sometimes life gives what a person deserves.”

He waited to hear the man's response. It was his duty, and he would take the risks he needed to do it, but there was always the chance that the person he chose to help would reject his kindness.

“Thank you...so much,” the man said, voice thick with emotion. “I understand now.”

“That's good. I'm happy for you,” Light smiled into the phone. “Thank you for calling our hotline. I'm glad that I was able to help you process your grief the right way.”

After the man hung up, Light got up for a quick stretch and wandered off to get a cup of water.

“Phew!” A young woman was already drinking the cup she had just filled from the water dispenser. Light recognized her as a classmate from one of his college courses. She shook her head slowly to herself before noticing Light make his approach. She looked sheepish, and Light gave her a commiserating smile.

“Tough, isn't it,” he commented.

“Yeah, I'm happy to do it, but it's a lot of responsibility to walk someone through what they're feeling.” She exhaled deeply before straightening her shoulders determinedly. “Well, better get back to it. The director told me that we have very few people on staff today. Must be thanks to flu season.”

“Mm,” Light hummed in agreement, his thoughts on his potential next caller, but he still noted the quick look that Kiyomi Takada leveled at the straight lines of his shoulders.

He settled back into his chair and took a draft of cooling water before his phone rang.

“Hello, thank you for calling our hotline. I am here to listen and help you connect to the resources you need to process your grief.

The woman on the other end began to cry as she told him about her husband lying in the hospital, unconscious from the beating he received for trying to mediate in a case of road rage.

Light listened as she talked and talked, and he clicked his pen.

 

 

Ryuk's toothy grin stretched across his face, and he flapped his wings, feathered tips grazing the fences on either side of the street as he searched for his target. There! He swooped into an upper level apartment on the corner of the building.

Light loosened his tie with a jerk and sighed deeply as he dropped down onto the couch in front of the TV. He toyed with the idea of turning it on and watching something mindless.

“Hello, Light Yagami,” the voice of dust and bone curled into his ears, as his disbelieving eyes strained to process the gargantuan shadow figure that they saw.

“Well, you're not what I expected.” The cool voice shook slightly as Light casually leaned back on his couch, head tilting to make eye contact with red gleaming pools.

“Huh?” Ryuk was expecting some screaming and fainting or even a brief rubbing of the eyes, but this human was surprising for sure.

“You know, something closer to what people have painted angels to be. Maybe not golden-haired and fair-skinned, but definitely not a creature that resembles what you'd see in the paintings of hell.”

What boldness, Ryuk marveled. Where's the respect? “I'm not an angel. I'm a shinigami.”

That gave the human pause. “Oh,” Light said. Was, was that disappointment? Ryuk thought incredulously.

“You're a god of death, huh. Then this isn't yours?” Light pulled out a thin notebook from his leather satchel.

“No, it is. Or it was. Now it's yours."

Light's eyes darkened with interest. “You decided to give it to me?”

“Ha! Ha, ha, ha!” Ryuk threw his head back in utter mirth. “No, I was juggling my notebooks out of boredom, and I dropped one of them. Then I got distracted when I saw some apples in a backyard. By the time I traced my route, you had already left the graveyard.”

“You could take it back,” Light pointed out, even as his fingertips turned white with the force of his grip on the notebook. “You could easily overpower me.”

“That's not the way ownership of the Life Note works. It's picky. I dropped it, and maybe it was an accident, but you laid hands on it, and now it's yours.”

“That sounds really careless.”

Ryuk shrugged the judgment off. “I hardly use it anyway. I've been watching you for the past few weeks, and you've written more names in it than I have for a while.”

An intriguing idea suddenly came to him, and he threw it out like a fishing line with a juicy wiggling worm. “Say, would you be interested in balancing out some of that life-giving?”

He took out the Death Note and dangled it in front of the human's face. “If you write a name here, then that human will die. Think of the fun you could have with that.”

Light's face grew cold and stern, and his eyes bored contemptuously into the shinigami. “Are you kidding? Don't insult me. I'm not having _fun_ here. I'm saving people who don't deserve to die. I'm protecting my world, and I'm not going to let you tempt me into evil, Shingami Ryuk.”

“Evil? I think you're doing a fine job of turning evil without my temptation. I noticed you haven't been saving every dying person around you. Smart move, by the way, with choosing that volunteer work.”

The coldness on Light's face morphed into serene arrogance. “I guess a shinigami wouldn't understand, but I'm not committing murder. They were going to die because of their own poor choices, and, of course, I wasn't going to spend time saving them at the expense of good innocent people. Now the world will naturally become a better place. You'll see if you hang around long enough.”

“You sound pretty definite.” Ryuk shrugged off the lost cause. “All right then. Good luck with your savior shtick.” He noticed the big glass bowl of shiny red apples on the coffee table. “Hey, mind if I grab an apple on the way out?”

 

 

**One Year Earlier**

 

Matsuda Touta breathed in the chilly air, and he shivered as it wrapped around his lungs, freezing even as it refreshed. It had been a long day, and not for the first time, he wished that Chief Yagami was still around to ask for advice.

“Feeling all right, Matsuda?”

“Yeah,” Matsuda responded, remembering to stay professional and leaving the glumness he was still feeling out of his tone. “I just wish the Chief was still here.” The words had just left his month when he remembered who he was addressing and backpedaled. “No! I'm sorry-that was unspeakably rude of me. I—”

“It's fine,” Chief Aizawa Shuichi dismissed the red-faced rambling. He came up alongside the younger detective and sighed, “I wish the same thing sometimes too. I'm not ungrateful that I was chosen to be Chief Yagami's successor, but I wouldn't have wanted the job for many years yet.”

Aizawa glanced over, remembering something. “You still visit his family sometimes, don't you. That's very kind. I need to muster up the courage to check on them more often myself.”

“Ah, yeah,” Matsuda answered. “I felt that Light could use the help, suddenly becoming the head of the family when he was just barely starting college. But they're all doing really well! The chief's death was a huge shock, and I was disappointed that Light didn't want to join the police force any more, but I understand why, and he's just as brilliant as a future doctor. Sayu can't stop talking about everything he's doing in his internship.”

Matsuda checked his watch suddenly. “Shoot, I have to go. Sachiko-san invited me to dinner tonight, and I don't want them waiting on me.”

“Go.” Aizawa waved him off, as he checked his own watch; no doubt, he was thinking of his own wife and daughters waiting to see if he would return to eat dinner with them. “It's a slow night.”

 

 

The steam rose in heavenly spirals from the hot pot in the middle of the table. Matsuda inhaled as deeply as he could without being audible, but Sayu still caught him and gave him a conspiratorial wink. He grinned back sheepishly.

“How has work been?” Sachiko-san asked, handing the ladle to Matsuda and inviting him to start eating first as their guest.

Happily, Matsuda spooned out chunks of beef and potato and cabbage. “Not bad. We closed two cases with violent perpetrators today, and fortunately, all the victims survived.”

“Was the Savior involved?” Sayu asked after she took the ladle from him.

“Oh, Sayu,” Sachiko-san sighed, shaking her head and looking towards the ceiling.

“What,” Sayu said defensively. “Even well-respected publications like _Asahi Times_ are writing articles supporting the idea.”

“And that is why I don't subscribe to them anymore,” Sachiko-san said tartly. “Imagine them writing such nonsense and getting people's hopes up. I've heard that there are actual websites so that people can submit their loved ones' names online, hoping that they'll be brought back to life. It's ridiculous.”

“I want to believe,” Sayu said defiantly before her voice became to tremble. “Maybe if the Savior had been around earlier, he could have saved Dad.”

The table fell into a hush.

Matsuda glanced helplessly between mother and daughter, and he thought anxiously for a way to break the silence. “Uh, you know, people can have different—”

“I'm home,” Light announced as he toed his shoes off in the doorway.

“Light!” Matsuda's voice joined the happy chorus as he thanked God that he didn't have to finish his sentence. He had no idea what he was going to say, and he had an unpleasant track history when it came to diffusing tense situations.

“I'm sorry we started without you,” Sachiko-san apologized.

“It's fine. I wouldn't have told you to if I secretly minded. Anyway, it's my own fault for being late. I forgot to bring my change of clothes to work, and I had to go back to my apartment.”

“It's good to see you again, Matsuda-san. Thanks for looking in on my mom and Sayu,” Light said, his smile lighting up his eyes as he turned to greet the other man.

Matsuda blushed. “No, don't thank me. I'm happy to do it. Anyway, I always thought I could lend a helping hand as your senpai, and that doesn't change even if we're in totally different occupations!”

Light laughed along, and he pulled out a chair, nodding in thanks as his mother passed him a warm dish with a healthy helping of rice. “So, what have you all been talking about?”

 

 

**Present Day**

 

Information was the primary currency of Wammy House, and the rumors abounded every time L started a new case, but this time, the rumors spread even more quickly than wild fire.

It seemed that L had taken up a case that was out of the ordinary—even for him.

“I don't get what L is doing,” Mello grumbled.

Matt mm-hmmed in acknowledgement while he continued playing his video game.

“I mean, he's always gone after murderers. Why is he so interested in people coming back from the dead? I think that's a good thing. After all, most of us here are actual orphans. Guess we don't know about L though.”

Matt finally paused his game, realizing that Mello wasn't going to stop talking any time soon. Like every other Wammy kid, he could multi-task big time, but it just wasn't worth the effort sometimes, and he didn't want Mello sneaking into his room later after hours to continue the discussion when Matt wanted to sleep.

“I think...it's unnatural,” Matt said ponderously.

“What?” Mello bolted upright from the bed.

Matt thought again for good measure, but nope, everything in his head agreed with the previous conclusion. “Yup, it's not right. If someone can bring people back from the dead, then death has no meaning. And if death has no meaning, then what are we living for anyway? All those movies you see about people living again don't usually end happily. Or if they do, they're stupid sappy movies meant for kids. You can't take those seriously.”

Mello stared at him, aghast for the first time in their friendship. His eyes looked stricken in the delicate bones of his face, and Matt remembered once again that Mello had always taken it hard how he had ended up at Wammy House.

“Okay, but maybe someone wasn't supposed to die.” Good old Mello, resilient as always, quickly recovered and found another angle to the argument. “If it was a mistake, then someone should fix it, and now someone is. After all, we've been hearing reports that all those people who came back are heroes. There was that firefighter who died from smoke inhalation. There was that lawyer who works pro bono cases for rape victims.”

“I guess, but you trust L, right? And L seems to think this 'Savior' is totally shady. Maybe he's done something wrong, like maybe he's saved someone he shouldn't.”

 

 

“He came back to life,” L said with deliberation. He waited for the doctor on the other side of the conference call to stop sputtering.

“Yes, he did,” Dr. Vihaan Saluja said impatiently. “I've said that three times now, and maybe you don't believe me, but even the worst doctor in the world can tell a dead person from a live one. That man was dead, and then he wasn't!”

The warden put a calming hand on the doctor's arm. “He's not doubting you, Dr. Saluja. It is hard to digest, you know, and I was there too. Hell, I'm still not sure what I saw.”

“Did you try again?” L asked.

The warden stared. “Try what again? Try the execution again? Of course not! Vigilantes are popular nowadays, no matter if they're murderers too. We already had the papers howling at us for executing him once. We weren't going to do it again. As far as I'm concerned, we went through with it, the man died once, and now, if his lawyer is any good, he's going to live his second life on the outside.”

“Interesting,” L mused. “It does seem like this is valid.”

The doctor looked ready to explode from an apoplexy, so L decided to refrain from describing all the other instances of so-called “Savior cases” that were merely the natural results of insufficient chemicals or improper administration of said chemicals. “Send me everything you have on this man: video tapes, files, photographs, anything related.”

L stood up, hand on the cover of his laptop, ready to end the call. “Oh, and be sure to send me everything you have on all the people he helped too.”

He walked to the window and stared out at the multitude of lights that filled the ground below him. It was very interesting. He had never considered that people could come back to life, and honestly, his first feeling was one of revulsion. He followed no religion, and he had no particular beliefs about the afterlife, but the idea of death being somehow reversible was unacceptable.

L poured himself a cup of steaming hot tea and carefully stirred several sugar cubes in, watching them dissolve peacefully, as he brainstormed about it. Could there possibly be someone who could bring people back from the dead? Today's conference call was the first time he'd heard of an inmate coming back to life after receiving the death penalty, but he had not been ignorant of all the other reports over the past few years of people being somehow resurrected.

He thought of Misora Naomi. Six months ago, when they last spoke, she had been adamant that a higher power had brought her fiance, Raye Penber, back to life after he died in the hospital from a gun shot wound. Was it a higher power though? Perhaps it was a someone. Considering all the terrible things that he had seen in the world, he highly doubted that a higher power would be so choosy about who was brought back and who stayed dead.

No, this was reminiscent of the black and white morality that he observed in people, a stark dichotomy of values that grew murkier and murkier as they descended into choices that began to contradict one another.

Saving the life of Derrick Clark, a known murderer, had moral implications that couldn't, and shouldn't be ignored, regardless of the good that Clark had also done. L wondered whether the moral dilemma had twisted up the Savior's mind as it now twisted L's as he tried to decide how he would have decided Clark's fate if he were in the position of the Savior.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work was difficult today, but it always cheers me up to work on my fanfiction.

 

“Dr. Yagami.”

Light set down the patient chart and turned at the call from the warm cultured tone. Takada gestured that she needed to speak with him privately.

“Good morning, Dr. Takada. Excuse me, Ito-san. I'll come in to check on your vitals a little later.”

Takada's brow was furrowed, and her lips were pressed together in an expression of concern that Light usually didn't see from her. Her composure had always been one of her best characteristics, in Light's opinion.

“What's wrong?” Light asked.

“It's not that something is wrong exactly. It's hard to explain. You'll see once we reach the director's office, but he asked me to find you.”

“Sorry,” Light said, hand dropping automatically to the pager on his belt. “I should be getting a new one this afternoon. I can't believe we didn't have any extras in the tech department. That's one thing I'm going to bring up to the director at the next meeting.”

Takada shook her head disapprovingly, but not at him. “There was no e-mail or voicemail or any other kind of notification. As soon as I came in, Suzuki-san told me the director arranged for a meeting at 8:30. I'm not sure that everyone will know to be there.”

Light's eyes narrowed as he considered what Takada was piecing together. Holding such a sudden meeting meant a high chance that staff who had later shifts or who had familial responsibilities in the morning might miss the meeting. And yet, the director had sent Takada, a doctor in her own right, to do the job of a gofer in fetching him. Why was that?

With the fast paced walking they both tended towards, they arrived at the conference room in just minutes, and Light's gaze swept the room. Aside from Takada and him, there were only two other doctors, Inoue Kiyoko and Shimizu Hisoka. The director sat in his usual spot at the front of the conference table, but to Light's bemusement, there was an open laptop with a large gothic “L” emblazoned across the screen.

“Director,” Light started.

“Dr. Yagami, Dr. Takada. I'm happy to meet you,” a mechanized voice issued forth from the laptop.

“What is this?” Takada asked, looking from the laptop to their director.

“Have a seat,” Director Mori said before he answered the question. “This is L.”

“L?” Takada echoed. She looked as lost as Inoue and Shimizu.

Light, however, stared hard at the laptop. L, he thought. He recognized the name as belonging to a famous reclusive self-named detective who had once or twice worked with his father on high-profile cases. It was a long time ago, of course, but Light still remembered the bitter jealousy he had felt at being barred from helping his father with those investigations, simply because of his youth.

“Dr. Yagami,” L spoke again. “The director told me that you're the son of Yagami Soichiro. I had great respect for your father. I know it's rather late, but I offer my condolences for his death.”

“Thank you. It was unexpected,” Light said evenly. “Can I ask why you're holding this meeting?”

The other doctors gasped at the bold comment, but the director looked unperturbed, and L's voice held no reprimand when he responded.

“Yes, let's continue with what I was explaining to your director. I am L. I am a renowned detective, and I am currently working on a case that requires information from multiple hospitals. At my request, Director Mori will be giving me access to your patient information. As you are the ones who will be updating and maintaining this information, I thought it logical to inform you.”

Stunned silence filled the room at this announcement. Takada's mouth was open, and she looked too appalled for speech.

Light considered what L had told them, and within seconds, he was ready to call bullshit.

“Director.” Light stood up from his chair, the forcefulness of his motion sending his chair rattling back. “I apologize for the disrespectfulness of what I have to say, but even under your instructions, I refuse to work with someone is so comfortable with violating patient rights. This is completely illegal!”

Light's words broke the floodgate, and the other doctors began nodding and chiming in with their own criticisms. The flood of recriminations grew thick and incoherent in the air until the director slammed his hand onto the table.

“Stop!” Mori shouted. “Are we children here, ready to complain?”

Silence again reined in the room, only to be broken by L's matter-of-fact words. “Hm, well, I couldn't decipher all the feedback, but I think I understand the gist. Would it help if I guarantee that I will only use the information to solve my case?”

“No,” Light said bluntly. “You might have worked with my father, but I have no idea who you are. I'm not even sure our director knows who you are. And my colleagues definitely don't know you. Our primary responsibilities are to our patients, and you have yet to describe your case. Our patients can't trust us to take care of their health if they can't even trust us to protect their medical information.”

L did not speak for a long moment, and Light was fully aware of the director's hard eyes on his back the whole time. He didn't look at his colleagues, but he knew that Takada would back him, and Inoue and Shimizu may not be brave enough to speak out first, but they cared deeply for their patients too.

“Dr. Yagami really makes me seem like some kind of blabbermouth,” L finally remarked.

“How do we know you aren't?” Light countered. He would persist until L gave a proper answer.

“I have an interest in the phenomenon that has been occurring all over the world, but primarily in Japan,” L stated in concession. “The phenomenon known as the Savior. The concept of those who have died being brought back to life through an unknown method.”

“You believe in the Savior?” Takada asked, her hands clasped on top of the table.

“I believe that there is someone playing the role of the Savior,” L corrected her, “But I am absolutely not a devotee. I think that the Savior is playing God and is making decisions that are not theirs to make.”

“Are the police involved?” Light asked; he doubted it since he had seen Matsuda only a week ago, and the man had mentioned no such investigation. With Sayu's considerable interest in the Savior, the topic would have been sure to come up.

“No,” L said. “While I disagree with what the Savior is doing, I have chosen not to involve the police because no crime has been committed. We could discuss morality in perpetuity, but at this point in time, there is no law against bringing back the dead.”

“Then why do you care?” Shimizu wondered aloud, flushing red to his neck when he realized he had spoken loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“Don't you?” L asked in return. “As doctors, aren't you the closest to the gates of life and death for humans? Doesn't it intrigue you, if not bother you, that someone can do what you cannot do and bring back those who would have died? Wouldn't you want to know more?”

 

 

 

Rem watched as Gelus broke down into a pile of dust that sat still for a bare second before it dispersed into nothing. As always happened when a shinigami died, Gelus's Life Note faded out of existence, but his Death Note remained.

Rem glanced at the crystal ball that still depicted the traumatized girl shaking against the chain-link fence and decided she might as well visit the human world. She snatched up Gelus's Death Note as she flew out of the shinigami's realm.

 

 

 

Light kept a mason jar of pens on his desk. It was an unusual accoutrement, and nearly everyone who saw it had to remark on it. Sayu had given it to him for his fifteenth birthday, and at age twelve, she had been justly proud of the simple elegance she had imbued in it: a cream-colored ribbon wrapped around the top to hide the circular grooves and dangled down in little points over a surface that was covered in swirls of engraved color. Sayu had handed him the gift proudly before showing him the swollen red fingers that she had mockingly demanded he kiss better.

Light had ensured that everyone at the hospital knew the touching history behind it, and as a result, he could trust that no one would dare touch or move the sentimental object. But knowing what little he did of L, he could, on the contrary, trust that the detective would poke around as he wished, breaking past the social barriers that held everyone else in check.

Light had taken home the notebook that he had previously kept under the mason jar of pens, but he wasn't going to let that ignorant busybody L stop him from fulfilling his duty. He pressed the palm of his hand against his jacket pocket where he could feel the slight bulge of his wallet. That small piece of the LifeNote would have to do. He would have to think carefully about other locations where he could secrete more pieces of the LifeNote. If more than one deserving person needed to be saved during the hours he was working in the hospital...

“Light-kun.”

Light's head whipped around to the doorway to his office where an unfamiliar man with a shock of inky hair and a rumpled doctor's coat stood.

“Who are you?” Light demanded, hand falling away from his jacket.

The man stared at him with hollowed eyes, and the heat grew on the back of Light's neck as he wondered if the man had somehow noticed something suspicious about his actions.

The man raised his long arms for Light's inspection and then let them fall. “I'm Hideki Ryuga. I'm one of L's potential successors. You demanded that L make a gesture of trust. Here I am, as promised. Ready to show my trustworthiness.” The crisp voice was completely neutral of any emotion, but Light bristled anyway at the implicit sarcasm.

“Hideki Ryuga, like the movie star? Your parents must have hated you,” Light taunted, his nerves making him angry and making it easier to devolve into juvenile remarks despite himself. “Or...is it some kind of stupid alias?”

“My parents hated me,” Ryuga Hideki said flatly.

Light's mouth closed on the rest of his remarks, and he just stared back at Hideki in silence.

“I'm kidding,” the man said, a sudden unnerving smile popping up on his face. “We will be working closely together after all, Light-kun. I thought it best to inject some humor to alleviate the tension.”

“Right,” Light said, still thrown but recovering. “Well, I don't think Hideki Ryuga is your name, and I'm not going to take you around the hospital introducing you by that name, so you better tell me your real name.”

“You're really picky, aren't you? Fine, you can call me Ryuuzaki.”

You can call me...? It figured that someone who went by an initial would have successors who also insisted on being ridiculous about names.

Light walked to where Ryuuzaki stood, and he stopped there, forcing the man to make eye contact.

“Look, Ryuuzaki or whatever. I have nothing personally against you, but my director is letting L do all this against my recommendation, and L is an asshole.”

“Damned by association, hmm,” Ryuuzaki mused.

“Partly, but it's mostly that you're not a doctor, and now I have to drag you around. Let's be clear: you do not talk to my patients at all. You're just observing and collecting whatever data L wants you to collect. And once we're done with this, then you're gone. Understand?”

“Of course, Light-kun.”

Light gritted his teeth. “Why are you calling me that?”

Ryuuzaki looked surprised. “I remember Yagami-san told me eight years ago that his son was sixteen, so that means you're twenty-four now.”

“And?”

“And that means I have seniority, Light-kun, and if you want me to call you Dr. Yagami in front of your patients and colleagues, then you would need to make it worth my while and show me some respect as well.”

With that, Ryuuzaki rummaged through his coat pockets and pulled out a sucker that he promptly slid into his mouth.

Simmering with growing dislike, Light hoped he would choke on it.

 

 

 

“Tell me again what happened,” Misa ordered. Her eyes were dreamy wide. She lay on her stomach, holding a mirror in her hands and watching Rem float behind her in the deep of her bedroom.

“Gelus watched one human girl all the time. Sometimes he would write down names in one of his notebooks, but most of the time, he just followed her life. One day, he saw the girl running from a stalker. She ran into a dead-end alley, and the stalker stabbed her to death when she rejected his advances. Gelus was in love with the girl and couldn't bear to let her die. He wrote her name in his LifeNote, but in bringing her back, he broke a cardinal rule of the Life Note.” Rem paused.

“What was the rule?” Misa breathed.

“If you bring someone back because you love them, you must give your life in exchange. “

Misa sighed in satisfaction before rolling around and looking up at Rem. “That's so romantic,” she whispered.

Then she frowned. She dipped an arm to the ground below the long covers of her bed and pulled a Death Note from underneath. “But you gave me this. I would rather have the Life Note. That sounds so much cooler, bringing people back to life.”

Rem shrugged. “The Life Note disappears with the death of the shinigami. It's always been this way. Only the Death Note is left behind to be picked up by whoever wants it, usually another shinigami.”

“But you thought I could get some use out of it,” Misa said, her lips pressing together in a thoughtful pout.

“Gelus saved you with the Life Note. But that's just once. Now you have to protect yourself.”

“You wouldn't save me, Rem?” Misa asked, her voice sweet with injury.

“It's not I wouldn't. I cannot.” Rem's eyes glowed in the growing darkness, as the sun dipped further in the streaked sky. “You cannot bring back a person who has already died once.”

“Really? That's too bad. It makes sense though. It wouldn't be fair to people who only live once.”

Misa swung her legs off her bed and walked over to her desk, picking out her favorite pen, a black and red striped one, with a crimson crystal heart bobbing on the top. It was an automatic fountain pen and always wrote so smoothly and so darkly.

“Maybe it's not so bad to have a Death Note instead. I can still save people by killing all the bad guys before they do more evil. Let's see who I should kill first, maybe that bitch Hanako, haha.”

 

 

 

_1) To save a life, you must know the person's name and face._

 

_2) You must write their name in the Life Note within 6 minutes from the time of death._

 

_3) If you write the name of a person who is still living, nothing will happen._

 

_4) If you write the name of a living person who will die within 2 hours, then they will live._

 

_5) You cannot bring back a person who has already died once._

 

_6) If you bring someone back because you love them, you must give your life in exchange._

 

 

 

Mikami Teru threw himself into the usual punishing exercise routine. As he pumped his arms and legs, as his muscles screamed for relief, as the sweat poured down his face, he thought about the next names he would need to write in his DeathNote.

The people around him, working out at a more sedate pace, watched with bewilderment.

Mikami used the physicality of his time here to push away the suffocating sensation of being surrounded by a morass of seething immorality. He remembered darkly how another prosecutor , Yamanoto-san, had shuffled around paperwork to give priority to a richer family's court case.

Mikami finally stopped moving the machines, and he gasped for breath, the outrage from earlier still flooding his mind. Yamamoto-san was not a murderer. He was not a rapist. But he did seem similar to a thief. Robbing people of what they needed.

Maybe he had been too selective. Maybe he should be writing a lot more names in the DeathNote.

Up in the sky, Ryuk watched the human through the glass walls of the building and laughed to himself. All those humans contorting their limbs into such uncomfortable positions and apparently paying for the privilege.

Mikami sat down on the bench after rinsing off the sweat of his workout. He used a second towel to dry the dripping ends of his wet hair. He couldn't stand the tips hanging cold and sharp against his neck.

“Hey. Mikami Teru, right? I let you borrow my Death Note. How's it going?” Remembering how the encounter with Light Yagami had gone, Ryuk didn't bother with ceremony.

Mikami let out a yell of terror and stumbled to the other side of the bench. “Be gone, foul demon! Evil deformed spawn of hell!” he screamed, looking increasingly frazzled, as his hunt for a makeshift weapon continued fruitlessly.

Ryuk bore with the unceasing screaming, but man, that name-calling was starting to really hurt. Fed up with the noise, he glided close to the human and poked him sharply in the ribs, sending him flying several feet.

Mikami choked briefly as the air was abruptly pushed from his lungs, and his eyes watered as he stared silently up at the abomination floating above him. The Devil must have sent a minion to interfere with his work to purify the world.

“I'm Ryuk. I'm a shinigami.” A leathery hand pointed towards Mikami's sports bag. “I used to own that Death Note you're using. I've been watching you for a while, and it looks like you've been busy.”

“You're a shinigami?” Mikami gasped out after a few fumbling attempts at speech. He looked Ryuk up and down. “I suppose you do look the part.”

Ryuk threw back his head and laughed, much to the clear shock of Mikami. Those humans the Notebooks attracted sure tended to be arrogant.

“What do you want from me?” Mikami asked, his eyes turning first wary and then bright with hope. “Are you here to bring a message from—from God?”

Ryuk grinned at the obvious substitution of words. “I'm not here to talk about anything specific. I thought you were funny, so I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Mikami sat in his sodden towel, staring at the death god intruding on his shower time. “Wait, even if you're not from God—do you know about the Savior? Is the Savior real?”

“Huh? I don't know anything about that. Sounds like some kind of religious thing. Better to ask another human about that. Sheesh. You're kind of needy, aren't you?”

A sudden thought struck Ryuk, and he let the human finish bristling at the perceived insult before continuing, “Say, how would you like to make a deal that would help you use the Notebook?”

Light Yagami hadn't gone for the deal, but maybe this human would. It was worth a shot. And Ryuk wanted to know how much further Mikami would go if given more abilities matching a shinigami's.

Mikami looked suspicious. “What kind of deal?”

Ryuk winked one crimson eye. “I'll give you the eyes of a shinigami. Right now, you can only kill people whose names and faces you can find. If you made a trade with me, then you'll be able to see every person's name and lifespan once you see their face. Think of what you could do with that ability.”

Mikami digested that thought in silence. “And what do I have to give you in return?”

This was the tricky part. Ryuk smiled. “You have to give half your life span.”

Seeing the horror-struck expression, Ryuk took on a persuasive tone. “I can use my eyes right now to tell you that you're lucky enough to have a nice long life span. You're only twenty-seven now, so you'll have several decades, even if you make the deal.”

Mikami narrowed his eyes, clearly distrusting Ryuk's pacifying words. “I can't make a deal like that without accurate information. I need to know my exact lifespan. How much longer would I live?”

“You'll keep twenty three years,” Ryuk decided to say. “You'll get to live all that time with the power of the death gods, and you'll die before you reach old age as a _decrepit old man_.”

That was one weakness of all humans. Forget their righteousness, their confidence, their strength of will. That all paled in the midst of facing the end of their youth and vigor.

Mikami swallowed hard. “That means I'll die when I'm fifty. The average life span for a Japanese man is 84. I'll die so young,” he said softly to himself.

Ryuk yawned loudly. “This is getting boring—and pathetic. I thought I was meeting someone who planned on styling himself as a death god in the human world. But you're just like all the other humans, aren't you?”

Mikami's lips pulled back into a snarl, and his eyes blazed black fire. “I am nothing like the others! This society is ridden with filth, and I've been working day and night to fix it! I am the god of justice in this world, and I'll make the trade!”

The smirk didn't split Ruyk's face until the deal was done, and he was flying over the horizon. It was pretty interesting to watch a straight-laced lawyer pick up a notebook in the park and then immediately start using it to kill people without batting an eyelash. And to think that he had almost wasted the Death Note on that uppity pretty boy several years earlier.

 

 

 

“Hmm.”

Light ignored the annoyance as he continued to check the incision on his patient's lower thigh. He caught sight of the woman's discomfited face, and he tilted his lips into a faint smile of exasperation. It wouldn't do for people to wonder why he looked fit to murder when he was taking around his so-called new colleague.

Ryuuzaki would not stop with the damned humming sound.

“Is there something you want to share, Ryuuzaki?” Light finally asked.

“I'm just curious.”

“About what?” Light masked his impatience with a more overt smile, including a hint of teeth.

“I heard that Dr. Yagami volunteers some of his hours to answer phones for the grief counseling hotline that the hospital sponsors. Considering that Dr. Yagami is highly regarded as a rising star in the medical field, I wonder why he does a job that interns, if not volunteers or specifically hired staff, would do.”

That was a very targeted question. Not for the first time, Light wondered at the strangeness of being one of only four doctors “invited” to the meeting yesterday. Could L already be narrowing down people who could be the Savior? Light refused to use the word “suspects,” even in his own mind. He wasn't a criminal, and even L had acknowledged that. Regardless, Light hated the feeling of being hunted and analyzed.

Light perfunctorily checked the last notation on the patient's chart and then he gave her a genuine smile. Startled, the woman smiled back with pleasure. “You're doing very well, Nakamura-san. Your vitals have been steady, and the incision from surgery is healing very well. You'll be discharged in the next few days and be home with your family by Thursday.”

“Oh, thank you, doctor. I'm so happy to hear that!”

Light smiled again, and then he led Ryuuzaki out of the room. He didn't say anything until they reached the staff room, and surprisingly, the other man remained quiet too.

Light pulled down a box of tea bags from its little nook. “Do you want tea or coffee?”

Ryuuzaki tilted his head and eyed Light thoughtfully. The hairs raised on Light's neck at the appraisal, but he busied himself looking for clean mugs. For people who were so hygienic with soap and water and a final squeeze of hand sanitizer for good measure, his fellow doctors could be so disgusting with the kitchen.

“Tea sounds wonderful, thank you,” Ryuuzaki said politely. He pulled out a chair and sat with his feet on the seat and his knees level with the table top.

Light chose to say nothing.

Hands warming themselves over the mug of green tea, Light resumed the conversation. “It sounds like you've done a lot of research into our hospital. So you should know that we place a lot of emphasis on patient care and doctor-patient relations. In fact, that's why I was shocked and upset at our director for giving into L's demands. Maybe L has something on him?”

“Hm, I wouldn't know,” Ryuuzaki demurred.

“L doesn't share much with his proteges then,” Light remarked. “Anyway, it's not a secret or anything: I started volunteering for the hotline when I was in college. I was thinking of becoming a doctor, but that was a big career change from what I originally wanted, so I wanted to get some experience working with patients and their families first before I committed.”

Ryuuzaki uncapped a squeeze bottle of honey and gave his milky tea a good dose. Light stared.  Where did he—?

“I spent some time last night trying to remember Yagami Soichiro and his family.” Ryuuzaki took a sip of his tea and must finally have been satisfied because now he matched Light sip for sip. “He was very proud that his son intended to join the NPA after college.”

“That was my intention, but sometimes you have to think better about what you choose as a teenager. My dad died of a heart attack, driving home from work late at night. I don't blame the doctor in charge, but I can't discount the fact that if he'd been more competent in the emergency room, maybe my dad would have lived. The best way to make a change is from the inside.”

“You didn't hold the NPA responsible? Your father did get a heart attack from overwork and stress.”

It was odd, but resenting Ryuuzaki for representing L was difficult to do when he was turning out to be the only person Light could talk to candidly about his father's death. His mother and Sayu had taken it so hard, and Matsuda, no matter the several years he had on Light, always seemed like a kicked puppy when they talked about Light's father.

“Unfortunately, my dad's dedication to justice meant that he chose to work longer hours than he should. I'm sure the NPA could use an overhaul too, but I can't blame them for my dad's choices.”

“That's too bad though. The more I talk with Dr. Yagami, the more I wish we could have worked together.”

“You flatter me, Ryuuzaki,” Light laughed. “You're L's successor. I might not like L, but I do remember the stories my dad told me about his cases, and my dad wasn't the type to exaggerate. If you're anything as good as L is supposed to be, you'll get to work with the best of the police forces.”

Ryuuzaki gave him a sharp look. “I don't like to give empty praise. It's true that I researched your hospital, but it didn't take long to hear about Dr. Light Yagami and the innovative methods he's piloting.”

That was why L decided to focus on their hospital? Light wanted to laugh, but he merely gave a close-lipped smile. “Well, I'll accept the praise, but I'm not the only doctor here trying new things. This is Tohuku Hospital after all. I'm sure I'll sound arrogant, but it's a fact that only the cream of the crop are invited to work here.”

“L is aware of that,” Ryuuzaki stated bluntly. “That's why I am here on his behalf. We are working off the theory that the Savior is most probably a doctor here.”

 

 

 

“Shit!” Matsuda slammed down the phone, angry and afraid from the news he had just received. “We'll need to send out an alert. An officer in Saitama Prefecture just found an abandoned car with the correct plates.”

“Ah, damn it!” Officer Adachi cursed. “So, the bastard's switched cars somehow. Hopefully, he didn't carjack someone. I'm sure we wouldn't find the driver alive.”

All around Japan, cell phones lit up with the same warning that scrolled across TV screens and internet browsers: “Please be aware that Hamada Ichiro is armed with multiple guns. He was last seen in Saitama Prefecture and may be heading towards Yamanashi Prefecture. If you see him, contact the police right away.”

In his office, Mikami was meeting with the mother of a family victimized by an arsonist when his phone buzzed to indicate an incoming text message. He briefly considered checking it, but his professionalism demanded that he defer his curiosity and continue writing down the mother's updated statement.

“I'm so sorry,” his client began to apologize as her phone rang out with a cheerful jingle. “I told my daughter to text me if she couldn't find the right sauce.”

She reached out to silence it, but then she stopped. “Oh, my God!”

Resigned to the interruption, Mikami took out his own phone and looked at the message that had popped up. “Saitama Prefecture. That's very close to here.”

“I hope my daughter sees this on her phone,” the woman said nervously, “Oh, but I don't think she will. She's terrible about checking her messages. Mikami-sensei, I'm terribly sorry for wasting your time, but can we reschedule? I need to go find my daughter.”

“No, no, of course, your daughter's safety is paramount,” Mikami soothed. “I always have plenty of paperwork to finish in the office anyway. Go ahead. My secretary will reschedule another meeting with you."

Mikami waited for the gush of thanks and goodbye to fade before he closed his door and locked it. He searched the carjacker's name on his phone, locating a clear close-up of the man's face. He opened his briefcase, took out the precious notebook, and with a few quick characters, solved a plague on society permanently.

 

 

 

The reporter on the screen looked appropriately somber:

“This is Fujiwara Akane, evening news. I am at the scene where Hamada Ichiro robbed a convenience store and shot the cashier in cold blood yesterday afternoon. The stock boy immediately called the police, but Hamada fled in a car and was able to evade pursuit.

In today's early hours Hamada abandoned his car and carjacked Akiyama Hanako, a housewife from Saitama Prefecture. Akiyama-san is currently in serious condition at Tohuku Hospital.

That is all we have right now, but we will update the public as more news from the police—Hold on! What's that?

This is an unexpected turn of events! But we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Hamada Ichiro has been found dead in his second stolen car. No one knows how he died yet, but there seems to have been a car crash. We will keep our viewers posted.”

 

 

“Good evening, viewers! This is Fujiwara Akane, evening news. The first update of the evening is a happy one. Akiyama Hanako, the housewife who was carjacked by Hamada Ichiro, is in stable condition at Tohuku Hospital. Dr. Takada Kiyomi, the leading surgeon, confirmed that Akiyama-san will live through the night, barring any unexpected complications. Now onto the eyewitness reports we found on Hamada crashing his second stolen car.”

 

 

 

Light washed his hands meditatively in the bathroom. He dried them off before wetting an extra paper towel and wiping the sweat from his forehead and temples. Ryuuzaki had excused himself abruptly half an hour earlier, and Light wondered why, but it was a lucky coincidence all the same. Light would still have gone to the bathroom so that he could write on his little slip of LifeNote, but he wouldn't have put it past the other man to insist on coming along. Just like he had done earlier during lunch.

Light rolled his eyes. If it weren't for the intelligent comments that peppered the rest of Ryuuzaki's often inane conversation, Light would have been wondering if the man really was a representative of L and not some stalker who had concocted a convincing cover story.

Ryuuzaki was a pain in the neck, but he was interesting too. Most people Light encountered were tedious, even though he worked in a renowned hospital, and he was willing to forgive a few quirks for stimulating conversation.

While he was still alone, Light logged into the computer and checked the current status of Akiyama Hanako. He didn't doubt the powers of the Life Note after using it for so many years, but confirming the results always made him feel good.

Then he heard footsteps behind him. Back stiffening, Light took his time reading a few details that Takada had entered into the computer about the physical therapy Akiyama-san would need.

“You look happy,” Ryuuzaki noted, not bothering to hide that he was reading along with Light over his shoulder.

“Of course I am. You must have seen the news. The poor woman that got carjacked and left for dead was brought to our hospital. Dr. Takada had the honor of performing her surgery, and now, she's in stable condition.”

“I did hear about it. I also heard that she became brain dead on arrival.”

Light shrugged. “The paramedics must have been mistaken. We had two car accidents and a murder-suicide coming in at the same time. It was very chaotic.”

“That's right. When I came back, I found that you were in surgery for the murder-suicide. I'm sorry that you lost your patient.”

“Thank you,” Light said, eyes calm and reflective like the sun glancing over a still pond. “But he shot himself in the head. That's a very difficult injury to treat. I didn't expect him to make it.”

 

 

 

“So, what did you want to show me?” Light asked during a break the next day.

Ryuuzaki rubbed a thumb across his mouth, drawing attention to his penetrating eyes. They were dark and enigmatic like the volcanic pools Light saw sometimes in nature magazines, and when Ryuuzaki wasn't saying something infuriating, Light almost found them attractive. Ryuuazaki took out a folded sheaf of printouts from his ill-gotten doctor's coat and handed them over.

“What are these?” Light asked, leafing through them. He noticed that they looked like surveys from a diverse group of people. His purview slowed as he began recognizing more and more names.

“I collected these testimonials from people who believe that their loved ones were brought back by the Savior.”

“I see,” Light said noncommittally. He put the papers on the table. “That's a lot of people who believe in this figment.”

“You don't believe that the Savior exists?” Ryuuzaki probed.

“No, I don't,” Light snorted. “Look, Ryuuzaki, I'm a doctor. Sometimes a patient you thought wouldn't make it does make it, and it's just random chance. I've saved people who were this close to dying, and like all doctors, I've also had plenty of patients die on me too. My methods work better than others, but I'm no god, and sometimes I couldn't even tell you how much I had to do with it.”

“You have one of the lowest rates of patient deaths in all the hospitals, Dr. Yagami. I wouldn't sell myself short, if I were you.” Ryuuzaki sounded genuinely admiring.

Light could have been flattered; instead, he narrowed his eyes. “That is supposed to be confidential. Just how much information is our director sharing with L?”

“Don't worry about it. Bagel?” Ryuuzaki pointed towards a box of fresh baked goods that Light hadn't seen that morning.

Light started to say no and then registered that this time, Ryuuzaki had brought more savory items in addition to the usual sugary messes that he preferred. It was a gesture of consideration that Light really hadn't expected, and the toast he had eaten this morning wasn't keeping him as full as it normally did. “Ah, thanks, Ryuuzaki."

The man smiled. “Dr. Yagami is much more pleasant company when he's not grouchy from hunger.”

The goodwill Light had been feeling evaporated. “Whatever, anyway, why are you showing me testimonials from the poor people that the media has duped? Right now, I actually do second-guess becoming a doctor. If I were in the NPA, I would make a motion that we arrest those fraudulent reporters.”

Ryuuzki listened to his quietly vehement words without comment, placidly pulling apart a doughnut, separating the frosting top from the doughy bottom. “I have an acquaintance who believes in the Savior. I highly respect her intelligence, and I would strongly hesitate to call her deluded. I've been reading all the information I could get on the Savior, and I'm noticing some patterns. I hope that you can take a look, and let me know what you think. I'll know if my theories are correct if we reach the same conclusions.”

Light read each page carefully, comparing what Ryuuzaki had gathered and what Light himself remembered. Some of these were from several years back, and it made him uneasy to think that the past could be dug up so easily. It wouldn't do to underestimate Ryuuzaki or L.

Light took his time, taking some pleasure in making the other man wait, before he stopped and leaned back in his chair. “I recognize some of these names from the newspaper. Kobayashi Miyu designed a new water filtration system last year, and Tanaka Yuuto started a new program for underserved youth in Kamagasaki. The rest of the names are foreign, so I don't know who they are, but I am familiar with Meredith Rodriguez and Samuel Chen. I met them both briefly at a medical conference in Canada. I assume all the others must be community leaders or pioneers in the field as well.”

Ryuuzaki plucked out a specific sheet and placed it on top. “The kind of people that the Savior values, hmm? I wonder if the Savior keeps track of them. If so, I'm sure it was an incredible disappointment to find out what Samuel Chen did to his daughter. It seems that a dark side can be easily hidden.” Ryuuzaki spread the array of photos apart, giving Light a clear look at the documented abuse.

Light stared down at the photographs clipped to the paper. The taste of vomit crept up his throat, and he numbly tried to recall if he had really written that man's name in his Life Note. If he had, he wondered if he could somehow take back the life he had given.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 “This is Amanda Pierson, correspondent for Los Angeles News. Let's hear from Professor Nathan Lopez. Professor, what can you tell us about Kira?”

“Well, Kira is clearly a construct that arises from our society's dissatisfaction with...”

 

 

 

“We are back with more news about the phenomenon known as Kira, the god of justice that a growing percentage of the population believes in. Police have confirmed that five more criminals on death row have died from heart attacks today, and in...”

 

 

 

“Introducing our new game show: 'If I were Kira, I would kill_________________!' Let's start the purge: get ready to up-vote the contestant with the best suggestion!”

 

 

 

The same media that had once proclaimed the apogee of the Savior and the wave of miracles now proclaimed the era of Kira and the tsunami of justice. Granted, much of the news on Kira still bordered on the skeptical and farcical.

Misa watched Sakura TV's Kira Special with sparkling eyes and, at the end, clapped her hands in glee. “I can't believe it! There's someone else out there like me. I need to meet them. Maybe we can work together.”

“Do you think that's wise, Misa?” Rem asked. “Kira may not take the revelation of another Death Note user well.”

Misa's eyes flashed a translucent crimson as she smirked. “I have the Shinigami Eyes, and I can tell Kira doesn't, not yet, so I have an advantage. And I have you too, don't I, Rem?”

Rem said nothing.

“Come on, Rem,” Misa coaxed. “You've been staying with me all this time. Wouldn't it be boring if you had to follow me around on the weekends to all the cities in Japan? And what if Kira isn't Japanese? I didn't even think about that until now. Maybe I'll have to spend the rest of my life checking America and the other countries too!”

Misa clutched her face in mock despair. “Kira must be wonderful, but I have a life here! I can't do it, Rem!”

The shinigami somberly watched the girl's antics.

Finally, Rem spoke, “Kira lives in Japan.”

Misa gasped, “Are you being honest, Rem? How do you know? I can't believe you didn't tell me earlier!”

“Last week, I saw another shinigami when you went to audition for the shampoo commercial. His name is Ryuk, and he has a history of visiting the human world. It's possible that he has nothing to do with Kira, but I've heard rumors that he has an extra Death Note that he tricked from the Shinigami King.”

“So, Kira must live around Tokyo. Let's see. My agent scheduled me for a product placement ad at a studio there this Thursday. I can take a look around during lunch.”

Misa blew Rem a glossy red kiss and giggled to herself. “Thank you, Rem! How exciting, I can meet Kira in just four days!”

 

 

L muted his microphone and lay down his headset while the various police organizations argued. Watari would signal him if his presence was needed again.

Normally, he liked to focus on one case at a time, unless circumstances forced his hand. Still, it would be beneficial to continue looking into the Savior even as he was giving Kira his greater attention. He would have to thank the Savior if they ever met. L would have put the pieces together more slowly, but with the context of people coming back to life through an unknown method, it hadn't been a leap to realize that people could be killed as well through an unknown method.

Likely, he would be able to find some information on Kira by continuing on the case of the Savior, but he had the nagging idea that it would be round-about. And so far, judging from what he had found on the habits of the Savior, L doubted the two were working in concert.

His cell phone rang, and L glanced down to confirm it was from Watari before he reconnected to the conference call.

Immediately, he knew the discussion would not be to his liking. The room previously full of shouting had muddled into a hushed tension.

“L,” Chief Aizawa from the NPA, a man he had noted for being direct and principled, decided to speak first. “At this point in time, the International Federation of Law is not willing to commit resources and time to finding a killer we don't believe exists.”

“How could you possibly think that Kira doesn't exist?” L demanded incredulously. He had always known that other people were not as quick about making connections, but this was ridiculous.

“All we know so far is that criminals are dying,” the Chief Justice from the United States joined in. “Criminals are still people, and people die for all sorts of reasons.”

“Criminals dying of heart attacks one after the other is not natural,” L stressed, trying to restrain himself from calling them all a bunch of imbeciles.

The Lord Justice from the United Kingdom pointed out, “Several years ago, the world began believing in the Savior, and since then, little evidence has pointed to this Savior actually existing.”

More of the representatives then chimed in to defend their thinking, but L had already stopped listening. People could be so deliberately ignorant.

 

 

 

Light reread the obituary he had found online. Shortly, after the police arrested him for his daughter's death, Samuel Chen had died of a heart attack in his cell before medical assistance could be provided. What suspicious timing.

Light thought about the shinigami off and on throughout the years. Ryuk, that was the name, wasn't it? But the horrific creature had seemed so much out of nightmares that Light had come to doubt his memory. It had seemed more likely a hallucination from the strenuous hours he worked during his internship before his body and mind finally adapted.

“Urgh!” Light screamed furiously, slamming his hand into his desk, narrowly missing his laptop. If only he hadn't been so dumbstruck by the shinigami's presence. He could have interrogated the damn creature for information instead of being at a loss now.

Light stalked around his apartment before stomping to the couch and throwing himself onto it. His eyes caught on the large polished black river stones that built the foundation of his coffee table. He didn't know if he wanted to kill or thank Ryuuzaki for the day's revelations. To think that he had saved the life of a man who had gone on to do something so despicable to his own flesh and blood was utterly repulsive. And before Light could even begin planning how to fix his error, this Kira, this so-called god of justice, had interfered.

Light was not against what Kira was doing, but the idea that a serial killer was taking it upon himself to fix Light's problem...That was galling. He didn't care that Kira didn't know the full situation. God of justice? That title belonged to someone who didn't go around treating human life so carelessly. Light himself weighed the balance of each life before he decided whether he would intercede.

If his father were still alive, Light would ask him what he thought, but likely, his father would agree with him, and that convinced Light more than anything that Kira was in the wrong. No matter how frustrating the court system had sometimes been, Light never heard anything anarchic from his father. No, Yagami Soichiro had been always been a staunch advocate for Japan's justice system, regardless of the doubts he shared with his son on rare occasions. Light remained confident that his father's spirit would strenuously object to Kira's actions.

Light chuckled darkly. He had met quite a few gods in his lifetime, and he had little use for most of them. The god of death. The god of justice. And he himself had garnered a nickname from the world: the Savior, the god of life. He was better than the rest of them.

 

 

 

“Dr. Yagami to Surgery Room #3. Dr. Yagami to Surgery Room #3.”

Light bolted upright from the cot where he had been resting his eyes. Damn it. He hated the moments his body gave into weakness and he fell asleep without meaning to.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he ran to the correct surgery room. He scrubbed up quickly amongst the other members of his surgery team, and he nodded for the physician assistant to tell him the facts.

Ever since he had noticed Kira's actions growing bolder, Light had been watching the news until the late hours, trying to learn more about the DeathNote that Ryuk had mentioned so many years ago. He had thought about trying to contact the shinigami, but he doubted even followers of the occult could give him a genuine method for finding a mythical creature turned real.

As more and more people began to believe in Kira's existence, so had the news reports begun improving in quality. Now the different media companies vied for viewership, with contrasting opinions on Kira. From the beginning, Light had kept track of the anchormen who clearly and consistently opposed Kira, and he continued to wait for something he couldn't identify yet. Simply his confidence in himself told him that he was right to watch.

“Forty-three year old male. Brought in for a heart attack. Symptoms began 10 minutes ago.”

A heart attack. How ironic. Light would almost have suspected the man to be one of Kira's victims if it weren't for the fact that they died of heart attacks almost immediately. There was no chance of medical intervention, no chance of survival.

Light contemplated the slow rhythm of his patient's moving chest. Any doctor could treat this man, but how would Kira react upon realizing that someone had the power, the authority, to fight against his evil, to turn back what he could do?

That night, in his apartment, Light turned on the TV and kept his attention on the news while he reheated one of the frozen meals his mother had insisted he take the last time he visited home. He paused on each channel until he reached the one for SakuraTV.

He found their usual news insipid and counterfeit, but their claim that Kira had chosen them to spread his message was difficult to ignore. Light scoffed when he saw L appear in person to confront Kira. L had turned out to be a tall slim man with shoulder-length dark hair and classical features. He looked so much more ordinary than Light expected, and he wondered why L would show his face on TV. It was a puzzling choice from a reputedly brilliant man; still, Light was annoyed: a mass murderer was worthy of his physical presence, and four doctors at the height of their field were not?

Shock coursed through him when he saw L grab his chest and fall to the ground.

Kira had struck!

Light searched the background for Ryuuzaki or anyone else who might fill L's place, but then a familiar mechanical voice spoke: “I can't believe it! You actually killed him! I suspected that Kira had that power...but to see it confirmed...But you can't tell who you're actually killing, can you...You had no idea that man wasn't really me.”

L really was intelligent. Also a bit ruthless. Light listened as L described the dead man as a criminal on death row who paid for his crimes by being a proxy.

Light's contempt for Kira grew. Killing criminals was one thing, but murdering detectives, even off-beat ones like L, was incompatible with being a proponent of justice. Light didn't regret refusing ownership of the Death Note, but he was sure that he wouldn't make the same mistakes if he were in Kira's position.

 

 

 

L took a deep calming breath and then another and then another. It wasn't working. He abandoned the plate of petit fours that Watari had placed by his elbow earlier, the old man's way of comforting his charge.

He had enlisted Lind L. Taylor on the peripheral thought that showing his face so early in the game with Kira would be unwise. It would have been a fatal game otherwise.

He couldn't fathom what the world was coming to, that such dichotomous forces as Kira and the Savior could coexist. He had been unable to decipher how the Savior was able to resurrect the dead, but he had not been threatened for trying, though Yagami Light, his prime suspect, certainly did have a scowl that threatened to mutilate when L had sufficiently aggravated him.

Fortunately, the death of Lind L. Taylor had led the International Federation of Law to give his earlier theories more credence, and Chief Aizawa had apologized for his skepticism and offered the Japanese police force's assistance to fight against Kira's evil.

That was more than enough to balance out the odd night terror that he had suffered ever since that shock.

He had compiled enough data to postulate that the Savior's abilities had limits, and that the Savior, besides only favoring those who met his moral standards, could only bring back those who had their names and faces and as well as locations and other information made public on the Internet. Possibly the Savior also used TV and print as resources, but L's gut instinct was that the Savior preferred the Internet for a reason.

If the Savior was truly a counterpart to Kira, then Kira most likely had the same limitations. Kira had been able to kill Lind L. Taylor in a few minutes after L had begun to provoke him, but Kira had not been aware that Lind L. Taylor was not the man he claimed to be. That mistake had a significance that L needed to unravel in order to trap Kira in a corner and defeat him.

 

 

 

Kira must have been exceptionally busy for several nights because Light's routine of watching the evening news revealed no shocking deaths of Kira's opponents or the usual criminals. Keeping the Life Note in his apartment had been beneficial in retrospect since he didn't have to bother with taking it to and from the hospital.

Light sat on his couch with the Life Note open to an empty page on his coffee table and with a fountain pen at the ready. Kira had sent another message that Sakura TV was publicizing on the killer's behalf, and this message contained an ultimatum.

“I will give a day for the people of this forsaken world to choose whether they will follow the side of the light or the side of the dark. If you follow me, then you will show yourself to be righteous. If you hide criminals from me or support them in any way, then I will take you to task as I would any common criminal.”

That was a high-handed speech. Light had been righteous for years longer than Kira had been active, and Kira was threatening the men and women Light had been watching over for years as a benevolent god. Kira would have to learn who truly ruled their world.

Anticipation coursed through Light's veins as the anchorwoman from JPN News stopped reporting on the Kira's execution of a drunk driver who had escaped sentencing on a technicality.

“I don't normally do this, but I feel strongly that everyone who can muster their strength must take a stand. While this man is indeed guilty of a crime, I would wait for the justice system to properly see his sentencing through. If Kira kills this man as he has other criminals, then I would have to say that Kira is exactly as our society has named him—a killer. He is not lawful, and I—”.

Brave woman, but had she really considered the consequences of her actions? Light watched as her calm voice strangled itself into a gasp, her hand flew up to her chest and wrinkled the fabric above her breast, and her colleagues around her contributed immensely to the air of frenetic fear by screaming incessantly.

Light had been waiting for this. He smirked at the name he had written in the Life Note. Just wait until Kira got the surprise of his life.

Light watched eagerly for the slain woman to sit back up amongst the panicking people. He waited. The minutes kept ticking by, and finally, the emergency services arrived with a gurney—and a body bag.

The smirk on Light's lips unraveled as he realized that the Life Note had failed him. How could that be? Was the Death Note, a tool of a killer, more powerful than the Life Note? Could the gift of life be so easily conquered by the curse of death?

JPN News station cut the feed, and a generic message declaring the interruption of a broadcast scrolled across the screen. Light stared grimly at the black text on white, as he fell deep into thought for his next steps.

 

 

 

L regarded the men gathered before with a weight on his mind. Normally, he didn't place particular care on the lives of those who worked with him. He gave them the same courtesy he would like, that they knew their own minds and could decide what sacrifices they were willing to make.

He had just shared all the conclusions he had come to about Kira, and now, the few men who had volunteered to continue with the Kira case looked contemplative and not a little afraid in the pallor of their faces and the tightness of their lips.

“What can we do first then?” Matsuda asked. “If Kira has powers like these, what else is he capable of?” He fiddled with the replacement police badge, fingers running over the engraved lines of his alias.

L gestured towards a cart that Watari had wheeled in, filled with laptops already containing files with the Kira victim profiles that L had gathered so far. Each day, he was collecting more.

“I have my suspicions of where Kira is located, and the population of the city is large enough that I would need to spend a needless amount of extra time sifting through information to narrow down my suspects.”

“You said that the FBI would be sending twelve agents here. What will they be doing?” Moegi-san asked.

“Those agents will be at equal disadvantage if Kira makes good on his vow to destroy people who oppose him. You have heard the saying: Too many chefs in the kitchen? The bureau will send the agents when I ask for them at which point we should have a sufficient list of suspects to tail.”

“But so many people watch the nightly news, and the Internet has so many news websites. It would be impossible to figure out suspects just based on that,” Ukita-san said frustratedly.

L sympathized, but so many of his cases began with such dismal tedious beginnings until momentum hit along with breakthroughs. And he was honest enough to acknowledge that Kira's powers meant that he would be very wary with each step that he made in exposing the criminal.

 

 

 

“Are you certain that you must meet Kira, Misa?” Rem asked. The shinigami may have given up the information Misa wanted, but for the past few days, she had persisted in cautioning Misa against her plan.

“I'm Kira too, you know, Rem,” Misa said smiling serenely as she slowly swept the deep gold polish against the tip of each finger. She admired the sharp contrast against the midnight blue she had applied to the bottom half of each nail. “Anyway, I've changed my mind. I'm going to find the identity of this other Kira, and I'll tell the Savior who it is.”

“Why?” Rem asked, completely thrown. “They will see no difference between you and the other Kira.”

“I'm sure the Savior would understand. I haven't killed any innocent people. My only victims have been rapists and murderers, and who would fight for their lives? Not the Savior. He saves good people, kind people.”

Misa twisted the lid of her polish shut and waved her fingers gently in the air to encourage quicker drying before she opened the lid of her jewelry box and took out a sterling silver bracelet. It had little charms including a heart, a key, a peace sign, and a horse. She slid the little rod on one end through the loop on the other, closing the bracelet around her wrist. It looked incongruent there, a little too small, a little too childish.

“My dad gave this to me when when I turned sixteen. It was my favorite birthday present. It's real silver, and he must have saved up for it with my mom. Three months before my birthday, a drug addict was breaking into houses in our neighborhood, and he stabbed my dad when he answered our door. We got him to the hospital in time, but the doctors told us that his surgery had complications. We thought he was going to die, but then suddenly, he started improving right away.” Misa's voice began to waver at the end of her story, and she had to hold a hot rush of tears at bay, as she remembered the pathetic sight of her father lying helpless amongst those starched sheets.

“That may not have been the Savior,” Rem pointed out bluntly.

“You didn't see how bad Dad looked,” Misa cried. “He looked completely grey, and he was so still, I was worried that he'd already stopped breathing, and no one could tell. And then it was a miracle. I owe the Savior so much!”

Misa looked tearfully at Rem's silent visage above her. “I will support the Savior. I am on his side, the side of the light.”

 

 

 

_1) To resurrect a life, you must know the person's name and face._

 

_2) You must write their name in the Life Note within 6 minutes from the time of death._

 

_3) If you write the name of a person who is still living, nothing will happen._

 

_4) If you write the name of a living person who will die within two hours, then they will live._

 

_5) You cannot bring back a person who has already died once._

 

_6) If you bring someone back because you love them, you must give your life in exchange._

 

_7) You may give half your life in exchange for the Shinigami Eyes._

 

_8) If the same name is written in the Life Note and Death Note, then the fate inscribed first takes precedence._

 

_9) If you possess the Life Note, your lifespan is not visible to those with Shinigami Eyes._

 

 

 

Light parked his car in the spacious underground parking garage before he took the elevator up to the ground floor where he would meet his contact. He adjusted the lapels of his coat and smoothed down the sides where he could brush against the slight bulge in his pocket. He would have to watch that he didn't develop a tic that would attract unwanted attention.

On Wednesday, the director had called him in for a talk, and much to Light's surprise, it had nothing to do with obliging L or Ryuuzaki again, the latter of which had not appeared at the hospital for the past several weeks.

Instead, the director had requested that Light fulfill a local new station's request that a reputable doctor tape a segment on the symptoms and treatments for heart attacks.

“I don't know if I believe in the existence of Kira,” the director had said measuredly, “but there is no denying that heart attacks as cause of death has been rising. As one of the most highly-regarded hospitals in Tokyo, we are obligated to provide current and accurate information for the benefit of the people we serve. Or so the hospital board of directors believe.”

“And if Kira does exist, then you're not concerned that Kira would turn his sights on us?” Light asked in response, mind whirling away. How would this affect his plans for Kira? Would it be best for him to demur what the director was asking, regardless of how it might affect his standing in the hospital?

The director gave him a meaningful look. “That is why I am asking you. You are a talented doctor, Yagami-kun, but more importantly, you have the skill of tact and eloquence. If you can use that to win grants and comfort patients' families, then I expect you to steer the hospital through these troubled times. I believe my trust in you is not misplaced.”

“Of course not,” Light had answered. Taping a neutral segment delivering information on Kira's chosen method of execution was a decent way of beginning a discourse with Kira, though possibly a one-sided one at the beginning. He would just have to make sure it wouldn't be a fatal one.

The young man waiting outside the front doors of the building was holding a clipboard and wearing an ear wig. He waved energetically when he saw Light walking up.

“Dr. Yagami, right? My name is Yamada Daiki. I am so honored to meet you! I've read all about your achievements and research, and I think you're incredibly brave to do this segment.”

Daiki-kun leaned closer and whispered, “You know, everyone thinks of Kira now whenever the topic of heart attacks comes up.”

“I appreciate your encouragement,” Light said graciously, “but I'm just here as a representative for Tohuku Hospital. Accurate information about health should always be disseminated, and I'm sure Kira, even if he existed, would not begrudge us that.”

As Light walked into the building with Daiki-kun, they crossed paths with an idol and her rather annoyed manager in the foyer. The manager appeared to be chastising the idol for wanting to explore the nearby stores during her breaks.

“The traffic here is terrible, Misa Misa. If you don't come back on time, then you won't be able to get work from this company again. You would look completely unprofessional.”

“But Kimura-san, I've been working for four hours straight! I should be able to get some fresh air,” the young woman pouted, her long earrings jangling discordantly with the crosses swinging back and forth.

Daiki-kun shot her a sympathetic smile, and Misa returned it before her eyes fell on Light. Her eyes widened, lashes fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. Daiki-kun mouthed several words at Light: Oho, you lucky bastard. Light suppressed the curl of irritation and reminded himself that most people his age were still idiots—no surprise.

The idol's manager noticed them as well and courteously stopped her loud lecturing for the duration of their walk through the foyer and around the right hand corner.

Once out of earshot, Daiki-kun gave Light a conspiratorial look. “She was checking you out! And what a babe! But I guess it's not a surprise since you're such a handsome guy.”

Light laughed along to build camaraderie. He could feel the heavily made up eyes still following him as he entered into Studio B.

 

 

 

“Thank you for your time, Dr. Yagami. I, for one, just learned a lot about what to watch out for. I'm getting on in years—” The generous audience called out a hearty denial, which the middle-aged host accepted with a bow and grin. “And I definitely need to cut down on the red meat. Now, could we have some questions from the audience?”

A middle-aged man raised his hand and stood up when a studio assistant brought over a microphone.

“My question is whether Tohuku Hospital is taking a stand against Kira.”

The audience grew hushed, and the ever-smiling host dropped into a grave expression. “Now, let's remember that this segment is for informational purposes, not ideological ones.”

Light cut him off. “No, Tohuku Hospital is not taking a stand against Kira. But I am. As a doctor who strives to follow the Hippocratic Oath, I completely disagree with the disregard that Kira has shown for human life. Aside from killing convicted criminals awaiting the death penalty, Kira has also killed men and women who hadn't even been brought to trial. We have a court system set in place for a reason. Furthermore, I find it repugnant that Kira professes to believe in justice, but he's also creating a fascistic state by threatening those who are not criminals for simply disagreeing with him.”

Light continued speaking, hand raised in an elegant gesture to emphasize his point. “God or no, if Kira is truly righteous, then—”

The sharp pain lancing through him stopped his speech half-way through.

Light clutched his chest, aware of what the shortness of breath and sudden bout of nausea meant. Kira must have taken his words very, very badly. Now Light was joining the ranks of all those who had opposed Kira, all of whom, except L, had died.

The pain increased, and it grew exponentially more difficult to continue breathing.

Light fought the darkness that threatened him, but it rushed over him like a flood. Immense hatred for the weakness that Kira had forced upon him kept Light's mind alert and intractable until the end.

 

 

 

Misa blotted her lips in the bathroom after she finished touching up her lip liner and lipstick. The hot lights of the studio had led her to lick her lips more often than she had intended to do occasionally as a flirty gesture.

She looked giddily into the mirror. It was the same joy she had felt when Rem had come to her the first time. The feeling of being chosen, of being fated for something special.

Misa had expected to spend all of her breaks that day looking for Kira, whenever she could leave her manager behind, and she had also accepted that she would likely not find Kira and would have to return and search some more.

She had never considered that she might meet the Savior. Yagami Light. She had been confused by the second character of his name, but some quick searching on her phone had settled the matter. Light had an impressive history from high school all the way up to the current day, where he worked as a surgeon for Tohuku Hospital. He was so handsome, tall and slim with sharp eyes framed within a fine-boned face, like one of those archangels she had seen in museum paintings.

She glanced around the studio bathroom to make sure she was still alone, and then she murmured, “You're sure, Rem?” After all, she would not be able to see Kira's life span either, and working in the fashion and entertainment industry, she knew better than most that beauty could hide a multitude of sins.

Rem regarded her with exasperation. “The DeathNote leaves a mark on the soul. It's unmistakable. Light Yagami, no matter what minor wrongs he may have committed, has no such mark.”

“Then it's the best day of my life, Rem,” Misa said dreamily. “I can't wait to introduce myself to him. I'm sure he's been waiting for someone who really understands him, and I'll devote everything to him.”

Rem stayed silent in the face of Misa's heartfelt declarations, as she had increasingly become prone to doing.

 

 

 

It has been often said that doctors are the worst patients in the world. Light defied that saying as soon as he woke up to the sound of a nurse from his own hospital fussing with his new IV line. He had broken into a striking smile that the nurse found extremely attractive and somewhat troubling for his sexuality.

Light lay back comfortably, as the nurse nervously adjusted his bed to a gentler incline that allowed him to sit up. His body ached in multiple places, and his mouth was desert-dry from dehydration, but he had survived. He had succeeded in his plan to out-think Kira, and all matter of physical discomfort was worth it.

“You're awake,” Takada said, coming into his room, ever-present clipboard tapping on her thigh.

Takada didn't tend towards obvious statements like that. Upon his questioning look, the other doctor's restrained expression turned overtly sour. “Your girlfriend has been really worried. She's been here the whole day, constantly demanding to know your condition. You're a doctor, Light, so save us all some time and put her on your medical contact list, okay?”

“What? Takada, I don't have a girlfriend,” Light said flatly. After his father's death, he had pulled away from social contact and focused increasingly on his studies. At one points, he had considered asking Takada out, but in the end, he had decided that it wasn't worth any potential trouble at work should their relationship go bad.

“Mmhmm,” Takada said skeptically. “Anyway I'm going to let her in, so she'll stop haunting the waiting room, and you can talk it out with her, okay?”

Light didn't recognize her when she walked into the room, and the demure way she sat down in the visitor's chair didn't mesh with the portrayal from Takada. She wore a lavender summer dress with thin straps, her long hair up in a feathery ponytail that brushed against her shoulder blades. She reminded Light strongly of the dress-up dolls that Sayu used to play with.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly when she simply looked at him without saying a word.

“Oh, my name is Amane Misa. It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry about making things up, but I had to see you as soon as possible after I found out what happened. Um, how should I explain this? Maybe if you could touch this first.” Misa held out an origami crane in the palm of her hand.

Light eyed the paper trinket for a long moment before he reached out to hold it.

Despite suspecting what he would see, Light still flinched back when the white shinigami appeared, scowling at him with distrust.

“You're Kira,” he accused, scowling back. The only thing similar to a weapon that was close at hand was the IV stand. He still contemplated using it.

“No!” Misa protested. “I'm not the one who did this to you. I swear! I have a Death Note, but I am not Kira. I saw your interview on Tokyo!Live, and I agree with everything you said.”

“But you've used the Death Note,” Light said unforgivingly. He dropped the paper crane onto the bedside table and sat up straighter, squaring his shoulders.

Misa sank back into her chair. “I used the Death Note for the same reason you used the Life Note,” she said quietly. “To do something about what's wrong in this world. You're the Savior. You've brought back the dead, but only the good ones. Isn't that right? So, I thought you would understand.” She bowed her head.

Light looked at the vulnerable nape of her neck, all too aware of the growing hostility in the shinigami's eyes. What loyalty the creature was showing.

“Misa,” he called gently. When she lifted her head, he leaned forward to grasp her hand, pulling it close to where he could place a kiss without straining himself. She gasped at the touch of his lips, and he could see her eyes shining with devotion when his gaze held hers.

“I know you're on the side of the light, Misa. I know I can trust you,” Light said with all the well-practiced sincerity he had learned to fake through medical school.

Her lips began to tremble with emotion. “Then, will you make me your girlfriend? I'll do anything you tell me to.”

Light forced himself not to react. “We can't spend that much time together all of a sudden. The same detective, L, who's after Kira is also after me, for whatever reason, and that won't be safe for you. I can tell you now that L won't see a difference between the justice you enact and Kira's mockery of it.”

“But I—!”

The knock on the door startled them both, and Light shot Misa a look to stop arguing immediately.

Ryuuzaki stepped through, without waiting for a response, and he was carrying an elaborate gift box tower that just cleared the top of the doorway. Ryuuzaki regarded Misa with an unreadable expression before breaking into a wide smile that she returned with a frown.

“So this is your girlfriend, Dr. Yagami. I'm jealous.”

Misa's frown grew into a bright smile that matched Ryuuzaki's. “You're so sweet! What's your name?”

“Ryuuzaki.”

“Ryuu—?” Misa looked puzzled and not a little suspicious. Light was woozy from his long sleep, but he knew to interject anyway. “Yeah, I thought it was a mismatch too. Sorry, Ryuuzaki, but I just don't think 'dragon' when I look at you.”

“None taken,” Ryuuzaki said, and Light couldn't tell if he had caught onto Misa's reaction.

“What are you doing here?” Light moved on to the matter at hand. “I thought you had moved onto a new case.”

“I can multi-task, Dr. Yagami. Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't visit after hearing what had happened. You are a very close friend to me, you know.”

Light's eyes widened in shock, and he couldn't think of anything to say.

“Here,” Ryuuzaki hoisted the gift box tower onto the bedside table, pushing the vase of flowers closer to the wall, no secret as to his priorities. “Half the boxes are dark chocolate since you're too narrow-minded to enjoy the other kinds. The other half has some variety.”

“Let me guess: you're going to eat the other half for me.”

Ryuuzaki turned around, and his face dropped into an expression of shock that lasted several minutes as Light and Misa stared back in confusion.

“Ryuuzaki?” Light wondered if the excess sugar in the man's diet had finally done him in.

Finally closing his mouth with a click, Ryuuzaki blinked slowly. “I didn't think that Dr. Yagami would make such a rude comment to a friend bearing gifts. Regardless, I live in hope of changing your mind about the chocolates. That's what a friend would do.”

Misa looked back and forth between them during that little exchange, and she looked uncertain as she stood up from her seat, brushing smooth the flow of her skirt.

“I'll visit you again soon, Light,” she promised, and then she giggled before snatching back the paper crane from the table. “I'm going to keep practicing, and then I'll make you a better one, okay?”

It lessened Light's growing headache that Misa was showing greater depths of intelligence than he had first believed, though her sentimentality was clearly a flaw. He would have to keep control of what happened as a result of their meeting.

“Misa,” he called before she passed through the door. “I don't have my cell phone with me. Can you write down your number for me? I'll get a nurse to call you when I can have visitors again.”

Misa happily agreed, and Light tore off the paper from the pad and slid it under his pillow; all the while, Ryuuzaki watched curiously.

Surprisingly enough, Ryuuzaki made no comment and instead, took over her abandoned seat, hopping easily into his usual position. “I watched the TV segment you did. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or incredulous how you courted Kira's displeasure like that.”

Light snorted. “I suppose you would recommend a proxy, like you did. _L_.”

L stopped untying the ribbon from the gift box tower. Light's mouth curled at the unspoken confession.

“We have much in common then. Savior.” L smiled as brightly as he had when he first came in. He undid the ribbon, pulled the lid off the top box, and selected a darkly gleaming chocolate to examine. It met his expectations apparently, and he popped it into his mouth.

Denying it now would be pointless, but then again, Light wasn't known for being pliable. “If we're going to be sharing information, _L,_ then I expect to be treated like an equal. I'm not going to risk my life fighting against Kira alongside you if I think I'm better off not.”

L hummed and then offered Light the box of chocolates. “Of course, Dr. Yagami. As I said earlier, we are friends. Now tell me: what was that thing?”

 

 

 

“I guess poor Light's gotten himself into trouble,” Misa mused to her salad. “I wonder if that L is the same one who's been taunting Kira. That's so weird though. I've never met someone who had a letter for their name. Rem, is there any way to trick the Eyes?”

Rem paused in her chewing, and she set down the polished apple Misa had bought her. “I don't know everything about shinigami abilities, but even if it were possible to show a false name to the Eyes, it's not something a regular human can do. As strange a name as it is, it's probably real.”

Misa poked a piece of kale with her fork and twirled it in the air. “I'll protect Light in case anything happens with Kira, but L could be a problem. Light said that L was after him. What is that guy's problem anyway? Light's the Savior. He's so good and kind,” she said dreamily.

“Light also said that L is after you,” Rem reminded her.

“But I know who L is, and he doesn't know who I am,” Misa said confidently. “And I'm sure Light won't tell him. We're on the same side.”

Rem made a noncommittal noise. Then she asked, “Do you still plan on finding Kira today?”

Misa made a face. “I don't know. Kimura-san just stepped out to take a phone call, but she'll be back soon, and she won't let me out of her sight. I shouldn't have asked her for a longer break. That got her suspicions up. You know, the agency doesn't like it when we go out with boys in public.” Misa pouted. “And if I tell her I'm not going out with anyone, she'll just suspect me even more. There's no trust!”

The hollow lines of Rem's face relaxed into relief.

But Misa's pout grew devious. “Well, I can just go out and then ask for forgiveness later. As long as there aren't any paparazzi photos, it'll be fine.”

Misa abandoned her salad and pulled up one of her favorite designer bags. “Look, I brought a change of clothes, a wig, and my backup makeup kit. Nobody will recognize me.”

“Kira will know who you are regardless of all that if the shinigami attached to his DeathNote has offered the same trade I gave you.”

“Oh.” Misa slumped in her seat. “You're right. I didn't think of that. Shoot. I can't risk Kira seeing me. I can't die so early, not after I just met the Savior. Maybe I'll wait until I can talk to Light again. We can come up with a good plan together.”

“Misa!” Kimura-san said, coming back into the room and startling Misa into a jump. “What—you still haven't finished your salad? Stop playing around, and eat! You won't be able to get jobs if you look unhealthy.”

With the resulting nagging that occurred, Misa cut her losses.

 

 

 

In the end, Light walked away from his conversation with L, not fully satisfied by the conclusions they had come to, but further discussion would have been useless.

“You really plan on telling them that way?” Light had asked skeptically. “As a doctor, people place a lot of trust in me, but believing that kind of thing from anyone would be ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as believing that we have people out there with god-like powers?” L had asked in return. “I have only four detectives at my disposal. Only those few of the original force were willing to risk Kira's wrath to join my task force. The rest were genuinely too afraid.”

“And you think springing this news on them would help you figure out who has what it takes to continue? You barely have a task force now. What if all of them leave in the end?” Light argued.

L shrugged, laying his spoon down before taking a drink of his sweetened tea. Light watched the arch of pale throat and curled his lip as he imagined the overly saccharine taste. He drank from his own cup of unadulterated water, the cool liquid soothing his dry throat. Never mind almost dying. The resulting aches and pains he was still suffering stirred his hostility against Kira into a low-boiling mass in the pit of his stomach.

“Better to know now than later. And as a doctor, you should know how badly shock can affect thinking. They may as well have the extra time to accept the new data. Misa and her shinigami are unknown variables, and we may waste time trying to negotiate with them.”

“Misa is devoted to the Savior. She'll do what I ask.”

“And the shinigami?”

“And the shinigami is loyal to Misa.”

L had hummed briefly in response, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “Dr. Yagami is very confident. I hope it's not misplaced.”

Confident or not, Light didn't garner his well-regarded reputation as a surgeon by placing too much trust in probabilities instead of certainties. He glanced at the clock out of habit. It was late for most people, but it had been a long time since he had lived by those hours.

He went to his study and disabled his fail-safe mechanism before pulling the Life Note carefully out of the desk drawer. Leaving the Life Note in his apartment while he would likely be occupied elsewhere for days, possibly weeks, clamored against his instincts. But he had no guarantee that the Life Note would be completely safe where he would be going either.

He carefully folded one of the pages and cut it into small squares half the size of his palm. He had previously modified the back cover of his cell phone case so that it had an additional slot beneath the proper one made for storing credit cards. He pulled the new opening wider and slid the stack of papers in carefully, checking for wrinkles and tears. Finally, he replaced the usual cell phone stylus with a mini ballpoint pen, discrete in its black cover.

Light considered the results carefully and felt satisfied that he would be able to access the Life Note's power despite not having the full-sized version at hand. He had considered hiding pieces of the notebook in his watch, but he wouldn't be able to write much on such a small piece of paper.

He checked the clock again. The electronics store he usually patronized would be closed, but there was one five blocks from his apartment complex that sat on the edge between the downtown neighborhood and the strip of tourist attractions. It should still be open, and aside from offering popular games and tourist paraphernalia, it should also stock the materials he was missing. He would need to buy several of the same pieces in case his calculations didn't work out the first time, and he had to build a new mechanism for the remote-activated fire.

When he was done with all that, he would follow up with the cancer-stricken senator who had been trying to introduce a policy restricting gun sales. He was a doctor first and foremost after all. It would be irresponsible to focus on Kira to the degree that he neglected his primary duty to give life.


	4. Chapter 4

L could feel Watari's worried eyes on his curled back, but he wasn't ready to share his thoughts yet, and he couldn't estimate when he would be.

 

Thankfully, he had remained in control as he talked with Light Yagami, and he hadn't dropped into hysterics until he was safe in the town car with Watari, but it had been close. He could feel the cracks multiplying and growing, and his hard-fought calm was threatening to crumble.

 

He glanced over the spread of treats next to him with no appetite, and the slick white gleam of cheese cake was an unwelcome reminder of the terrifying creature that he had seen in the hospital room.

 

A shinigami! L stuffed down the humiliating giggle rising from his throat. It was fully ridiculous.

 

All the knowledge and skills he had acquired through his years as an independent detective had all oriented around science and technology. He was not ignorant on the topic of literature, but shinigami as a topic had never come up before. For obvious reasons.

 

The Kira case was a challenge, but all the cases he took on voluntarily had always been like that, all mysteries until he got involved and broke everything down into comprehensible pieces. This case, however, had the potential to truly make a mark on him. The obstacles he faced were so statistically anomalous that it hurt his brain.

 

L eyed the various options he had for a late night snack and just sighed in resignation. He was going to trade them in for some aspirin and a glass of water.

 

 

 

“Light!” Matsuda said in surprise. “What are you doing here?” Light had just finished putting his coat back on after going through the security gate L had installed in the entrance to their suite. With all his alterations, Matsuda really had to wonder if L was going to get his deposit back after they finished this case.

 

Light turned to face him. “Matsuda-san. I didn't know you were on the Kira Task Force.”

 

“Oh,” Matsuda said. “It's all confidential, you know, after what Kira did on live TV. It's nothing personal. I would have told you, if I could.”

 

Light smiled reassuringly. “I understand. My father always emphasized that confidentiality can be the difference between life and death.”

 

“Yeah. Ah, I heard about what happened. I'm glad you're out of the hospital, but are you really doing okay?”

 

“I appreciate your concern, but I'm completely fine. I'm just happy that someone I know is here. I talked with L for a long time, but I was still nervous about following him to a strange hotel without alerting my family or colleagues.”

 

“Yeah,” Matsuda laughed. “My fiancee is not happy about seeing me just a few hours each day. I can't wait until we catch Kira so that everything can go back to normal.”

 

“That is very optimistic,” L observed, coming up from behind Light and bumping him lightly with the plate he was holding. Balancing a fork in the same busy hand, he gestured for them to head towards the living room area.

 

The detectives already sitting there looked surprised, but also resigned, to see L bringing in an unexpected member of the public.

 

L forked a bite of tiramisu cake and hummed in enjoyment before gesturing off-handedly towards the kitchenette. “There's plenty more if anyone wants a slice before I start the updates.”

 

Matsuda looked tempted to get up before a stern look from Chief Aizawa had him sheepishly clasping his hands together.

 

“This is Dr. Yagami. Not counting the usual criminal victims, Dr. Yagami is Kira's latest target.”

 

“We know,” Moegi interrupted. “We finished reviewing all Kira-related segments from yesterday, and we saw Dr. Yagami's heart attack. But after all the cautioning you gave us about secrecy, why is the doctor here?” He turned towards Light and bowed slightly. “I apologize for my abruptness.”

 

L didn't seem perturbed at the challenge. “Dr. Yagami is the only victim to survive Kira. If we're going to catch Kira, we need as much information as possible, and as an anomaly, Dr. Yagami offers some avenues of thought we don't have currently.” He pulled a chocolate curl off his cake and ate it before adding, “And it will safer too for Dr. Yagami. Kira is definitely the type to finish what he started.”

 

“Oh, my God, that's right!” Matsuda looked horrified. “We need to figure out what we can do. Kira already must know Light's name and face, so even if we give him an alias or cover his face, Kira will be able to try again.”

 

“Yes, but for now, Dr. Yagami's miraculous recovery is under wraps. Even now, Watari is making sure that the hospital staff understands the moratorium on sharing information with the media. We'll also alter the hospital intake records to show that Dr. Yagami passed way shortly after arriving at the hospital.”

 

Ukita looked unconvinced. “But someone will blab. People like to talk, and if they know that someone survived Kira, they'll sell that story to the highest bidder and get a large sum.”

 

L smiled as he untwisted another chocolate curl from the cream. “I'm aware of human failings. Watari is making arrangements for all the staff involved in Dr. Yagami's care to be on an undefined leave of absence. The FBI agents that were promised have arrived, and since they do not have specific duties assigned yet, I told them to keep the hospital staff occupied in apartments we've just rented.”

 

Light stifled a laugh. He hadn't know about those arrangements either, and now he could just picture the expression on Takada's face on learning that she wouldn't be going out to the gym or to restaurants.

 

“To be on the safe side though, from now on, whenever we're outside this suite, we'll also address Dr. Yagami with a fake name. He'll go by 'Doctor Asahi' from now on.”

 

“Good to meet you, Dr. Asahi,” Matsuda said cheerfully, giving Light a wink.  Light returned a strained smile as he thought of his mother and sister, who had immediately confined themselves to their own house, to prevent any chance of giving away the secret of Light's continued well-being.  He had fought L long and hard at the hospital, insisting that his only family know the truth, before he would cooperate.

 

The other detectives in turn finally introduced themselves.

 

“So, Dr. Yagami,” Chief Aizawa returned to the principal topic. “Do you have any idea why you were able to survive what Kira did to all the other victims?”

 

Light made casual eye contact with everyone, including L, before sharing the story that he and L had agreed upon. Neither of them were the type to share more information than needed, so it hadn't taken too long, but L had made it inescapably clear that he would be questioning Light about the Life Note some more once Kira was taken care of.

 

“I'm not sure,” Light said slowly. “As soon as I woke up from the heart attack, I started thinking about it right away. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. I mean, I fully expected to die for what I said about Kira.”

 

The detectives all nodded sympathetically, but most looked visibly impatient. L separated another bite of cake and slid it into his mouth while his dark eyes watched Light's play-acting with interest.

 

Light sighed heavily. “I'm taking too long to get to the point. The thing is that I'm not sure if anyone will believe what I say next, but I think I lived because when I was a kid, I saw a shinigami.”

 

The silence that followed rang with disbelief.

 

“A shinigami? Are you talking about some kind of hallucination?” Moegi asked, being a bit quicker to recover than the others.

 

Light gave a self-deprecating laugh. “No, I mean a real shinigami. I wasn't sick, and I wasn't taking any drugs. It was shortly after my father passed away, so later, I wondered if maybe I was just seeing things, but in the moment, that shinigami looked incredibly real.”

 

Another silence followed those details.

 

“I believe Light,” Matsuda announced first. “If Kira can exist, then why can't shinigami?”

 

“Did this shinigami say anything to you?” Ukita asked, still looking fully skeptical.

 

“I was incredibly shocked,” Light admitted. “I remember it said some things about life and death, and then it left.”

 

“Did you make physical contact with it?” Moegi asked. “Maybe you did see something, but it could have been a cruel prank.”

 

Light paused and thought for a moment. “No, I didn't touch it. It spoke briefly, and then it left just as quickly. I haven't seen it since.”

 

L finally joined the discussion, setting his fork with a clink on the empty plate. “I theorize that if a human makes contact with a shinigami, then perhaps they receive some kind of immunity to certain types of death, like whatever method Kira uses to kill.”

 

Chief Aizawa sighed. “This is nothing more than a thought exercise though. It's a spot of brightness to know that something can give protection from Kira, but we can hardly track down a shinigami, if one even exists, and ask it to make contact with everyone. Our best bet is to figure out who Kira is and arrest him.”

 

Light bowed his head slightly. “I'm sorry that what I know isn't very helpful. I admire you all for committing to fight against Kira. I know how much terror he inspires in the average citizen.”

 

“No, no, you're too kind; thank you for your help.” All the detectives bowed back in response. L continued to keep his large dark eyes on Light.

 

“Watari is back now,” L announced. “He'll show Dr. Asahi to one of the available rooms. We'll reconvene tomorrow.”

 

The detectives let out sighs and murmurs of relief as they packed up and left for their homes. Light pulled out the slip of paper with Misa's phone number and smoothed it out. He may as well do it here as anywhere else in the hotel room; no doubt the whole place was bugged.

 

“I'm going to call Misa now. I'm assuming you'll want to listen in on the conversation.”

 

“That would be correct, Dr. Asahi.” L reached into his back pocket and pulled out a familiar cell phone. He handed it to Light. “You'll need this back.”

 

Light's hand clenched hard enough to make the plastic casing creak. He let go before he had to brave the nearest store to buy a replacement phone. “Did you pickpocket me?”

 

“It was just a safety measure. No need to think more about it,” L answered.

 

“You expect me to just let that go? You stole my phone!” Light demanded, glaring.

 

“No need to take it so personally either.”

 

Coming to an agreement with L apparently didn't negate Light's deep-seated urge to strangle him.

 

 

“Light!” Misa ran up to him and grabbed his arm. “I'm so happy that you called me so soon. Where do you want to talk?”

 

Light carefully pulled away from her. Aside from his general policy to be courteous with women, Rem was again at Misa's side, and he had no desire to get on the clearly protective shinigami's bad side by being rough.

 

“There's a cafe close to here. We can grab a coffee together.”

 

“But we'll need privacy.” Misa made exaggerated motions of looking around and then winked at him. “We can't talk about Kira where people can overhear us.”

 

“It's fine. At this time in the afternoon, during a weekday, there won't be many people in the cafe, and I've been to this one before. I know where we can sit so that it's harder to overhear us. Anyway, we just met, Misa. You shouldn't be inviting me back to your apartment. You need to be more careful.”

 

“Aw, you're really sweet, Light, to worry about me.” Misa's eyes shone with adoration, and Light looked away from the unwarranted affection.

 

Light glanced around the cafe when they entered. He wouldn't put it past L to be a suspicious bastard waiting there for them already, never mind their agreement that Light would gauge Misa's sincerity first.

 

Aside from a few college-aged girls and boys, the cafe was empty, and the hostess welcomed them gladly to their corner table and took their drink orders.  Still, Light kept his hoodie up and his opaque sunglasses on.

 

To prevent an untimely interruption, Light waited until their orders arrived before he broached the topic. “Misa, I need you to tell me exactly how many names you've written in the Death Note and who they are.”

 

Misa's lips parted to answer, and Light added, “I'm actually working with L right now. He's invited me to join the investigation, and we would like your help, but as I told you in the hospital, L has a very strict idea of justice.”

 

Misa frowned and took a sip of the iced vanilla latte she'd ordered. Then she looked right back at him, her body language open and her eyes direct. “I told you the truth in the hospital. I believe in the Savior, and I would never take a life for granted. I got the Death Note only half a year ago, and I've only written six names. They were all men in prison for life, and I read up on them and made sure there was no doubt about their guilt.”

 

Light studied her guileless face, and then he smiled gently at her. “I'm happy to hear that, Misa. We both know it's wrong to kill indiscriminately, even if they are criminals. Now, is Rem here? I need to know whether we can trust her. The help of a shinigami will be vital to the investigation, but would Rem be willing to help us?”

 

“Rem's my friend. If I ask her, she'll help,” Misa declared confidently.

 

“She's a shinigami, not a human. She might be obligated to stay on the sidelines. If she's here with you, I'd like to ask her directly,” Light probed.

 

At that, the white shinigami made her appearance, floating behind Misa on the side closer to the windows. The sunlight shining on her looked incongruent to the point of surreality.

 

Rem regarded him with clear hostility. “I will only help as much as is needed to keep Misa safe. I have no responsibility to the rest of you humans.”

 

“I understand that,” Light said calmly. “However, Misa is the owner of a Death Note. If Kira ever comes across her, he'll realize that, and she'll be in danger if he decides he doesn't want another Death Note user around. Not to mention, Misa opposes what Kira has been doing, and he's been losing more and more restraint. Her life is in danger for that reason as well.”

 

“I will protect Misa before that can happen,” Rem said bluntly. “Misa is more likely to be in danger if she helps your investigation.”

 

Footsteps approached their table, and Light looked away from the stalemate to see L walking up to their table.

 

“Ryuuzaki,” Light started.

 

L cut him off. “I fully trust in your persuasive abilities, Dr. Asahi, but time is of the essence, and I need you and Amane-san back at headquarters.”

 

L didn't sound any different in issuing this command than during other times, and Light would have pushed back at his presumptuousness, but as he stared L down, the thing nagging at him finally clicked. L was standing there with his hands in his jeans and nothing more. No fancy milkshake or elaborate cake, nothing like his usual indulgences. Just himself, all business.

 

“What's happened?” Light asked.

 

 

 

Back at the headquarters, Misa sat down uncertainly on a nearby couch, holding her clutch tightly to her lap.

 

L turned up the volume on the nearest TV, and the newscaster spoke so quickly that her words stumbled over each other, just barely understandable. “Breaking News! Kira threatens the life of a Diet member! Kira has entrusted Sakura TV with delivering this message at 1:30 PM today.”

 

The newscaster read off a typed letter while a large screen next to her broadcasted the words to the audience.

 

“This is Kira, the god of justice, speaking to the people of Japan. In his platform before being elected for the Diet, Takahashi Kentaro claimed that he would be a proponent for the people's beliefs, yet despite the growing support of Kira from the populace, Takahashi-san has continued to criticize the righteous punishments of criminals. Those who would seek to help criminals evade justice are little better than criminals themselves and deserve their own punishment. I will give Takahashi-san three days to publish a statement in support of justice, retracting all prior negative statements of Kira. Then he will have my forgiveness.”

 

The surrounding detectives all looked aghast at the ultimatum they had just witnessed against one of the most respected members of the Diet. Their speechlessness meant silence in the room until Light and L commented derisively in unison, “Kira's arrogance really knows no bounds.” They glanced at each other in surprise, and Light looked pained at the unintended stereo effect.

 

“Uh, yeah,” Matsuda was the first to recover and respond. “Oh, my God! What should we do? I can't believe that Kira is actually threatening Takahashi-san. He got an 92% approval rating, and he made history for it!”

 

“That is high,” L mused. “Kira must really be growing unhinged if he's threatening someone so highly regarded. He risks the general population turning against him.”

 

“Then he must have a reason for doing that,” Chief Aizawa realized. “But what reason would be good enough?”

 

“The only reason,” L mused aloud, “Kira would do this is because he has no doubts about the support he'll get from the general population. It's a rare person who can withstand the fear of death, so Kira must expect Takahashi-san to submit. But if he doesn't, if he forces Kira's hand, then there must be some other way that Kira expects to make this work for him.”

 

L shrugged and reached for a chocolate-dipped strawberry. He nibbled at it, exposing the red flesh beneath the dark covering. “On the other hand, Kira is a murderer first and foremost, no matter his delusions of being a higher power, and he may simply be evolving: first killing the guilty to now killing the skeptical.”

 

“We already knew that,” Light muttered, hand unconsciously pressing against his chest. L's eyes flicked towards him, and they seemed to darken briefly in sympathy.

 

“If Kira gets away with murdering such an important man for opposing him, then our society will fall into ruins. No one will feel free to speak their thoughts anymore; they'll be too afraid to say something that Kira might dislike,” Aizawa said heavily.

 

“Before we keep talking,” Ukita interrupted, jerking his head towards Misa, “who is this young woman? You were the one so focused on security, L, and now you're bringing in one stranger after another.”

 

“I don't mean anything by it, Doctor,” he added respectfully in Light's direction.

 

“Oh,” L said, working his way through another strawberry. “This is Amane Misa. She's the second Kira.”

 

The room erupted into cacophony. Light gave L a deadly look before standing in front of Misa, his arms out in a defensive gesture. He could feel Rem's aggravated breath ruffling the top of his head. Below Rem, Misa shrank behind him, her arms clasped around herself.

 

“Wait, please! L has an explanation for this. Right, L?” Light gritted out, willing the other man to consider the consequences of angering a shinigami.

 

L surveyed the room, long fingers dropping a neatly plucked stem onto the empty plate. “I didn't mean to panic everyone. Amane-san is here because she is Dr. Yagami's girlfriend, and she has generously volunteered to help us with her experience in acting.”

 

The vein in Light's temple pulsed, as the shocked men looked from Misa to him.

 

“Help? With acting?” Ukita mumbled in confusion.

 

“Wow, congratulations, Light!” Matsuda rushed over and pounded him painfully on the back. “You're so lucky! I can't believe you didn't tell me about your girlfriend before!”

 

“We're still just getting to know each other,” Light said curtly.

 

“Matsuda! Focus on what's important,” Aizawa barked. “L, this is unbelievable! What can an actress do to help?”

 

“We can't wait to uncover Kira the usual way. It will take too long; in this case, it's best to lure the culrpit out. Amane-san is going to pose as a second Kira and help us to make contact with the real Kira,” L continued to explain.

 

“But why involve someone outside the Task Force? Couldn't you, or at least one of us, pretend to be this second Kira?”

 

“That wouldn't work. Kira would be on the look out for any traps, and if he gets the idea that he's communicating with someone on his level, then he would be far more cautious. With Amane-san's help, that won't happen.”

 

Misa frowned and straightened up enough to jab a finger at him. “Are you calling me dumb?”

 

“No—just ordinary.”

 

Misa did not look placated.

 

“Would Kira believe so easily that someone else has the same power? Wouldn't he be more interested in someone claiming to be immune to his power?” Moegi asked suddenly, a thoughtful expression coalescing on his furrowed brow. “I'm not suggesting that Dr. Yagami get involved either, but that kind of scenario seems to make more sense.”

 

L knotted the strawberry stem into a double-loop, as he considered the idea. “Hm, I would give that plan a 32% less chance of working. Kira has been successful thus far in his murders. He has no reason to believe that he can't kill someone. Even if we offer evidence, it is only more likely to bring him on the offense. On the other hand, offering him a potential ally will put him off his guard. Kira is human. He won't be immune to flattery.”

 

He pulled minutely at one end of the stem, smoothly unraveling the complex knot he'd created. Then he glanced up. “Are we all agreed?”

 

 

Nishiyama Saeko drank deeply from her mug of tea and began retouching her makeup before she went back on the air to talk about the new flu vaccine. She re-traced her lips as she went over the notes she had written earlier.

 

She would have been completely content in her reverie if it weren't for the faint sounds of argument behind her, in the nearby mail room. The murmuring grew steadily louder until she could make out snippets of the conversation, though the exact topic was still a mystery.

 

“Fuck! Can you believe it?”

 

“It must be a prank—”

 

“I don't think it s a good—!”

 

Before she could ask what the fuss was about, Director Demegawa's voice boomed out, “Asada, you wuss, give me that! Just think of the viewers we'll get with this material! It's a godsend! Haha, literally! Hey, you, give this to Saeko.”

 

Curiously, Saeko turned to see a studio hand, Kitano-kun, rushing over excitedly with an old-fashioned CD-ROM in his hand.

 

How funny. She hadn't seen those since maybe high school. She hadn't realized that they were still being manufactured, though she supposed plenty of old fogies would stick to using the technology they were familiar with instead of moving onto using Google Drive.

 

“Nishiyama-san, you won't believe it! We have a message from someone who claims to have the same powers as Kira!”

 

Saeko dropped her lip liner, and it clattered on the floor as her eyes grew wide with wonder. There was someone else like Kira? That was incredible!

 

Saeko laughed delightedly. Thank goodness Okada-san had called in sick that morning. That meant the evening time slot was hers, and she would have the honor of sharing this news about Kira.

 

“Awesome, right?” Kitano-kun grinned back at her. 

 

“Very!”

 

They exchanged a high five as they were thronged with other staff eager to see what the CD-ROM contained.

 

Asada Toru stood separate and watched with disbelief as his coworkers happily discussed how to best communicate the CD-ROM's contents to Kira. Things had been getting more and more dysfunctional ever since Director Demegawa decided that sucking up to Kira was the best way to raise their viewership. Not for the first time, but perhaps for the final time, he thought about writing his resignation letter and braving the job market again. It couldn't feel worse than cheering on a mass murderer.

 

 

 

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR KIRA. I AM SYMPATHETIC TO YOUR PHILOSOPHY, AND I WOULD LIKE TO JOIN YOUR CAUSE. I POSSESS STRENGTH LIKE YOURS, THOUGH NOT YOUR KNOWLEDGE. AS I AM NEW TO WHAT I HAVE GAINED, I DEFER TO YOUR EXPERIENCE. I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SHARE. FOR EXAMPLE, DID YOU KNOW THAT GODS OF DEATH EAT RED APPLES?

 

KITA-SEN JYU. AKASAKA MITSUKE. THE SECOND COMING. 2:3.

 

 

 

Mikami read the first part of the cryptic message again. It was the fifth time, and he still wasn't sure how he would handle the revelation. He hadn't seen that grotesque shinigami since the deal he had made with it, so he couldn't confirm anything, but if there was one shinigami with a Death Note, there were bound to be other Death Notes, and of course, other users were likely to be sympathetic towards his fight for justice.

 

He didn't know how morally upright this second Kira was, but he had been using the Death Note for almost a year, and each day, it weighed on him, how alone he was, and how difficult it was to fight for Justice when so few righteous people existed.

 

Maybe it was time to bring more warriors into the fold, especially if they also had access to Death Notes of their own, and the first step would be to meet whoever had sent him that message. With that decision made, Mikami sat at his desk in a flurry of energy to draft a note he would later encrypt and send to Sakura TV. If this new Kira really were sympathetic to his goals, then of course they could work together, and Mikami's burden would be so much lessened that he could focus on helping people through his work as a lawyer again.

 

And if they turned out to be false or unworthy, then, well, Mikami had once been the only Kira out there, and he would have to remain the only one.

 

 

 

“Yes, that's right. We'll need the station closed until further notice. I'm very sorry for the trouble,” Matsuda said, bowing even though the person on the line couldn't see him. He felt so embarrassed at having to ask for the station's closure and not being able to tell the station master when they could re-open. He was scared to death of facing Kira, but oddly enough, his primary preoccupation was whether Kira would even show up tomorrow. If Kira didn't, then Matsuda would have the extremely unpleasant task of making more apologies for the unneeded inconvenience.

 

Moegi came back into the living room, sliding his cell phone into his trouser pocket. Matsuda shot him a resentful look. Seniority meant that Moegi called their contact for the FBI agents. If Kira didn't show, those agents would just shrug it off, used to the vagaries of fighting terrorism. Moegi wouldn't have to take their displeasure.

 

“We're taking a lot on faith, you know,” Moegi said abruptly, sitting down in a nearby loveseat and palming the side of his face.

 

“Huh?” Matsuda said dumbly before waking up from his imaginings of being verbally lampooned by an elderly station master. “Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. I'm sure they don't mean to, but L and Light are on a completely different level of intellect. Sometimes it's really hard to follow what they're planning.”

 

“I don't mean that,” Moegi said, shaking his head. “I'm talking about the fact that L seems to be keeping something from us. And I'm not sure that even the Chief is in the know. On the other hand, L seems buddy-buddy with your old friend, Light.”

 

“Oh, come on,” Matsuda said bracingly. “You know Light too. Remember when he was still in elementary school? He visited the chief at work and pointed to a clue that helped us to break the Waterways Case open. We can trust him.”

 

“Hope you're right,” Moegi said, shrugging. He looked and sounded tired as he leaned heavily back against his seat. None of them had rested well in the past few weeks, and the lack of restful downtime was getting to them. “Honestly, if this were a regular case, I would have a lot to complain about, and I wouldn't even know where to start, but I just want to get this shit over with.”

 

Matsuda opened his mouth to offer some cheering advice, but he just laughed ruefully. “Yeah, me too, Moegi-sempai. Me too.”

 

 

 

L was still sitting in his chair, his arms wrapped around the tops of his knees. The one lamp he kept on shone dimly from the side, casting half his face into shadow.

 

“Not in the habit of sleeping before confronting a dangerous criminal?” Light asked quietly, not intending to startle the other man.

 

“I've never needed much sleep,” L answered. “I prefer using the quiet to think everything through and see if there's anything I've missed.” He unfolded and reached for a cup of tea that looked cold and unappetizing. He took a swallow and made a face before refilling from the nearby teapot. “And what reason does Dr. Yagami have for being awake at this late hour?”

 

Light shrugged. “I couldn't sleep.” His eyes felt gritty with sand, and his face felt tight from the pressure of his pillow, but tossing and turning had felt pointless after the second hour.

 

“Ah.” L nodded in understanding. He gestured at the tea pot, still hot from the warming stand, and Light gratefully held the quickly steaming cup in his chilled fingers as L poured out the stream of fragrant water.

 

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. L stared at the opposite wall, fingers tapping against his knee every so often. Light watched him and thought about the rapid changes the last few days had borne witness to. It was funny. Maybe it spoke of something strange and twisted of him that this night before confronting Kira seemed so peaceful and calm. Light had felt more desperate the night before the oral examination for his dissertation than he did now. Granted, having company during this vigil helped.

 

“It's a pity Kira didn't take longer to respond. It would have been a good use of time to complete last minute wishes, wouldn't you agree?” L asked idly, fingers finally lying still, laced together around one knee.

 

He clearly didn't mean any innuendo, but with that opening, the carnal interest that had thrummed steadily in Light's body prompted an impulse he normally kept restrained. Before he could think better of it, he leaned into L's space and kissed him.

 

Light held himself there, lips against lips, shallow breaths puffing between them, until L pressed a hand against Light's chest. He didn't have to do anything else. Light pulled back, grateful that his inability to blush meant the humiliated flush was not evident on his face at least, and wondered how he could have gone insane at this moment of all times.

 

“L,” he started to stumble into an explanation, an excuse, a denial.

 

“I appreciate the sentiment,” L said, his tone sincere, as he resumed his prior sitting position, “and I don't mind what happened. It was pleasant enough. I've just never been interested in having sex when the possibility of dying tomorrow is close to 96%.”

 

“You say that like you've met odds as bad as that before,” Light finally said once he'd gathered the remnants of his pride and could speak without risk of his voice cracking. He accidentally ended up mirroring L when he pulled his legs closer to himself and ended up sitting cross-legged on the sofa.

 

L smiled absently. “I have taken on thirty-two cases, including this one, and they have all been high-risk. Tomorrow will tell whether I'll have the chance to take on my thirty-third case. I have to admit that a big part of my incentive is to surpass my predecessor. He made it to his fortieth, a nice round number.”

 

Light snorted with laughter at the asinine comment. “It's a shame there won't be time for you to tell Kira that's the reason you want to defeat him. It would be so ridiculous.”

 

“And what is your reason?” L asked with playful affront.

 

“My reason is noble and altruistic, of course.”

 

“Of course,” L agreed.

 

“Well, I am the best surgeon at Tohuku Hospital. Naturally, my next challenge is to fight Death in person, but it isn't possible, so I'll have to settle for Kira.”

 

L stuck out a hand. “An admirable goal. Let's hope that we both emerge victorious.”

 

Light smiled as he stuck out his own. “Yeah.”

 

They shook on it. L's fingers felt warmer than they looked and less brittle, and the uneven trim of his nails raked gently against Light's palm as they ended the clasp. The embers in Light's belly were ready to rise from slumber, but he leaned back against the sofa more comfortably, and they passed the remaining hours until morning in companionable silence.

 

 

 

Takahiro Higuchi patted the gun holstered at his side. He felt its presence was obvious beneath the security guard uniform that he had borrowed, but hopefully, Kira wouldn't notice. He let his gaze drift across the station, where the rest of his fellow agents had taken up various positions undercover.

 

Ryan Harada was lying on the ground in a dingy sleeping bag several meters away while Emily Tseng was fussing with the papers inside the ticket office. Twenty-four agents were following a carefully designed schedule to allow sufficient time for them to enter the train station, board a train that stopped early, change their clothes and hair, and then re-enter the train station, all without giving away the pattern to any potential observers. The rest of the force was in the surrounding buildings, including a few who were on the rooftops, ready to act as snipers.

 

Sweat prickled against the back of his neck as he checked his watch. The meeting time was 2:15 PM, and it was already close to 12:30. L had warned them that Kira was likely to appear early, and the tension of waiting was difficult to handle. Takahiro comforted himself with the thought that L would be arriving with his team by 1:00.

 

 

 

Misa nervously tapped her nails against the smooth leather of her Louis Vuitton purse. She wished that she had brought a cheaper one with her. If she had to run or fight, then she didn't want to be distracted with the thought of damaging a $300 item that she had borrowed from the Closet at work.

 

She glanced up at Rem, who was scowling at everything and anything. A smile tugged at Misa's lips; she had Rem, so she'd be fine. Anyway, she would get to see Light once they arrived at Akabane Bashi. Then she would help him defeat Kira. She giggled a bit, thinking of how she could steal a kiss from him afterwards. Cheered, Misa pulled out her cell phone to check how much longer they would be in the car, but the sudden screech of tires heralded an abrupt stop that threw her roughly forward and back.

 

“Ow,” she cried, dropping her cell phone to the floor. Fighting off the dizziness, she pressed her hands against her temples and snapped, “Hey, can't you drive—”

 

She caught the horrified look on Ukita-san's face in the back-up mirror, and her words fell silently into the air.

 

“Oh, Savior,” Matsuda-san breathed out, missing the sharp look from Moegi-san. “I think there's at least thirty bodies, maybe more.”

 

 

 

“What the fuck,” Aizawa mumbled to himself, thankful that he was driving alone in the third car so that he could swear to his heart's content. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, and he fished it out. The traffic wasn't going to move anytime soon, not with all the local police officers cordoning off the area and taking photographs of the crime.

 

From RYUUZAKI:

 

Watari will arrange alternate transportation. In the meantime, follow the local news. Likely, this mutilation is Kira's work.

 

Mutilation? Aizawa frowned before he pulled out his scanner from the glove compartment and turned to the correct frequency.

 

“...sick, really fucked up....we have thirty-six bodies here, and most of them look like they were tortured or something. I'm not sure. They look contorted, and I have no idea how they got that way. We need back up. The vultures are going to show up any minute, and worse, the...”

 

Aizawa prided himself on his calm facade even in the most dire situations a police chief could face during his career, but a shudder ran down his back. It definitely had to do with Kira. He just wondered what the fuck the killer was trying to do.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Takahiro walked another loop around the station. His cell phone vibrated with a message, and he almost jumped from the unexpected sensation. He laughed at how ridiculous he was being. He was an FBI agent, for chrissakes. He couldn't let his nerves get the better of him. The guys would never let him live it down if they knew he freaked over something so stupid.

 

From WATARI:

L will be late. Hold position until further notice.

 

Takahiro frowned. He wondered what had happened. L wasn't in trouble, was he? He wished he could confer with a fellow agent, but he had to act natural. Maybe he could pull Dena aside after she came back from her seventh train ride. He snickered. He had definitely caught an eye roll before she boarded that last time.

 

He walked all the way up the steps and paced around the foyer. He nearly collided with the tall well-dressed man carrying a briefcase who was walking with quick but sure steps towards the little gates.

 

“Whoa!” Takahiro blurted. The other man backed up, looking startled, and they eyed each other for a long moment. With his tailored clothes and undoubtedly expensive watch, the man gave an aura of sophistication and authority. He also seemed like the type to give retail staff a hard time. Goddammnit, had Miller or Furuta missed steering away a civilian? Wait, maybe it was Mitchell. That guy was a real idiot, always cutting corners and doing a sloppy job of things. Takahiro had no idea how he hadn't been fired with extreme prejudice yet.

 

“I'm sorry, sir,” Takahiro said, remembering his cover. “The train station is closed today.”

 

“What?” the man said irritably, flicking a long strand of gelled hair back over his shoulder. “Why would it be closed? Shouldn't there be advance notice of this kind of thing?”

 

Hadn't there been? Takahiro figured that there would have been someone assigned to taking care of details like that, for example, putting a digital out-of-order sign on the train system website, but maybe there hadn't been. He had never worked with L before, so he didn't know how thorough the guy was.

 

“Well, we did put up signs,” Takahiro pointed out because he had seen those for himself. “And I have some colleagues who have been reminding people to use another train station all day.”

 

The man gave him a haughty look, angular eyes flicking from Takahiro to his name tag and back to his face. “I want to talk to the manager. I'm on important business, and this delay is completely unacceptable.”

 

Was this guy for real? “Sorry, a manager isn't available right now. If you won't leave the train station, then I do have the authority to place you under arrest.”

 

“I see. Then I'll leave, but first, I'm writing a letter of complaint. As a citizen, I have the right to be heard.”

 

The man promptly pulled out a skinny leather notebook and scribbled away in it.

 

Sure, whatever got the guy's rocks off. Takahiro would let him write his complaint and then just trash it as soon as he left.

 

 

 

Samantha Tsuji rolled her shoulders for a few seconds before putting the binoculars back in front of her eyes. She noticed Miller and Furuta still dealing with the punk kids who thought it funny to throw glass bottles at the so-called construction workers. Delinquents. She rolled her eyes. At least they weren't Kira, she snickered to herself.

 

All she had been told about Kira was that he was most likely a male, in his late teens to early twenties, idealistic and egotistical, who obsessively researched and recorded his murders. She had also heard that Kira apparently used a notebook to facilitate causing the deaths, though the details regarding that intel had been sketchy. She wondered if that meant Kira had some kind of black book of assassin phone numbers, and he arranged for professional hits that he later took credit for publicly. That was the only thing that would make sense.

 

She could see Higuchi now had the fun of corralling a sharp dresser who seemed like the stubborn business men she had seen on the subway the past few days she'd been staying in Japan. She considered the chances of him being the Kira they were waiting for and eyed the black leather briefcase.

 

Before she could decide whether she should get into position just in case, she heard Tseng's voice come through her headset with surprising instructions.

 

She listened to the senior agent's words with a dull gaze before immediately dismantling her rifle, destroying her headset with a stomp of her heavy boot, and leaving the roof top to drive to the nearest isolated body of water. She had a slight awareness of her fellow snipers doing the same on the other rooftops.

 

 

 

Light grimaced as the tablet that they were sharing showed a live video feed from overhead. Kira had forced the thirty-six victims into contorting their bodies in such a way that they formed a cliched but still disturbing message: “Sinners, repent!” Considering what Light knew about rigor mortis, he knew it was possible, and he hoped futilely, those people hadn't been alive when they were forced into those positions. It would have been agonizing if they had been: the tear of ligaments, the snap of broken bone, the pop of joints dislocated.

 

He wondered uneasily why Kira had chosen this particular day for such a morbid display of power. Did Kira suspect something about their message? Perhaps they would make it all the way to the train station and fail to confront Kira. Maybe Kira wouldn't show and just leave them to feel like idiots.

 

“It's a good sign,” L said.

 

Light threw him a disbelieving look. Sometimes L said some truly inappropriate things, but this was incredible.

 

L caught his disgust. “The message is repugnant, but if Kira is bothering to intimidate Takahashi-san, then likely Kira doesn't feel confident that his demand will be met. And despite that, Kira hasn't turned to murdering Takahashi-san yet. He's not as demented as we'd thought.”

 

“The message could be for someone else though,” Light countered. “After all, we're on our way to give Kira a new friend. Maybe he's gauging the sincerity of his new partner. Anyone sane enough to be put off by what he's done wouldn't be suitable.” Maybe they were all heading to their deaths. Despite the friendly mood they'd managed to attain last night, right now in the car together, heading into the riskiest situation Light expected to experience (and never again), Light felt at odds with the man sitting in the neighboring seat.

 

L hummed neutrally. “That's also possible.”

 

With no argument to bolster, the blistering words in Light's mouth stayed unspoken, and they remained in silence for the rest of the ride until they arrived at Akabane Bashi Station ahead of the others.

 

 

 

“Stay here,” L said, unlocking the door on his side and hopping out of the car, without another look at Light, who'd opened his mouth to voice his instinctive disagreement.

 

The driver, an Okada-san, locked the doors promptly once L slammed the door shut.

 

“Hey!” Light jerked around to glare indignantly at being treated like some kind of liability. “Let me out,” he ordered futilely as the driver ignored him as only a true professional could.

 

Light slammed his fist onto the seat in frustration. Checking his phone for messages didn't brighten his mood when he noticed several missed calls from Misa. He weighed the pros and cons of calling her back; he wasn't sure what she needed to talk to him about, and quite likely, the urgency she felt was from feeling intimidated by Kira's grotesque display earlier. If he didn't comfort her, she might decide to bail with Rem's all too eager support. On the other hand, Light wasn't interested in dealing with a distraction right then.

 

The driver's phone rang. Almost immediately, he responded to the caller with a crisp “Yes, ma'am,” and then, he left the car after shouldering his holster.

 

Light stared confusedly. “What are you—?” Upon being ignored once again, he muttered a few choice words underneath his breath and then leaned forwards into the driver's side to reach the unlock button.

 

Getting out of the car, he touched his upper right jacket pocket where he could feel the Life Note bulging slightly from the inside pocket he'd stored it. The pressure was reassuring.

 

The driver had parked the car a few meters away from Akabane Bashi Station in a small side street, so Light got his bearings and started sprinting in the correct direction.

 

The sudden dark overcast of wings was something he hadn't seen for nearly a decade, yet Light realized the owner's presence right away. “Shinigami Ryuk,” he said flatly in greeting.

 

“Yagami Light,” Ryuk returned with a jovial grin.

 

“I wondered if you had something to do with Kira. After I rejected your offer, it made sense that you would find someone lacking morals to take you up on it.”

 

Ryuk crooked his long neck as he stared down at Light sideways. He was silent for a long moment before he said, “You know, you haven't changed at all. You're so arrogant and single-minded. You're a funny human. Well, good for you there's no sense of sour grapes.”

 

Ryuk's words held no threat, neither did his tone, but Light held his tongue. Years down the line, he did reflect on that first encounter with the shinigami and turn the night's events over and over in his head, wondering if it was the taste of regret or something else that lingered.

 

“How much of Kira's doings are because of your influence?” Light demanded tersely as he looked past the shinigami, wondering what L was doing and whether he was confronting Kira right now alone. Tension tightened the knots in his shoulders, and the drive to get more information warred with his need to be at the center of things.

 

Ryuk looked surprised, the expression incongruous against his large fanged mouth and bulging eyes. “I'm just a spectator. Hyuk hyuk. I would have returned to the shinigami realm a long time ago if it weren't for that guy being entertaining.”

 

“So, you won't interfere with anything that happens?” Light pressed. If he were more optimistic, he could have tried pleading with the shingami to help them stop Kira, but even if Light's pride allowed him to do so, his practical side refused to entertain such a stupid idea long enough to go through with it.

 

Ryuk scratched his cheek with a long leathery claw. “Depends on what I'm thinking when it happens. I don't like boring.”

 

Light bared his teeth, but before he could say anything, the grating noise of screeching cars heralded the arrival of the Kira Task Force, and Light checked to see if Misa was still with them. She was.

 

She stepped unsteadily from the car and looked around uneasily, her pale arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Within a few seconds, a large white shape plummeted from the grayish sky to hover by her side. Misa's wide-eyed gaze found Light but didn't register Ryuk's presence. Rem looked at Ryuk briefly and then disengaged the stare without speaking; Ryuk looked back and merely laughed, like an echo in a sepulcher.

 

“Light!” Matsuda slammed the passenger door shut and ran over to him. “What's going on? Where's L?”

 

“He took off without me,” Light said, keeping his eyes on Matsuda, aware of Ryuk lifting his wings and rising higher and higher until he disappeared into the sky. Light shifted his gaze to Misa and smiled reassuringly, holding her eyes with his own as he stepped closer to offer his jacket.

 

Aizawa, Ukita, and Moegi took longer to approach.

 

“Matsuda, here, the authorization finally came in.” Aizawa handed over a gun and holster.

 

“Ah. Okay.” The trepidation was clear on the younger man's face as he took them.

 

Aizawa didn't reprimand him as he might have during different circumstances. He turned towards Light and Misa and regarded them sternly. “I still don't understand why L has involved you in this investigation, but I'm trusting that there's a good reason. However, remember that you are civilians. If you're going to approach Kira with us, then you must follow what I tell you immediately.  Understood?”

 

“Of course, Chief Aizawa,” Light agreed, careful not to make his tone too placating. Aizawa reminded him a lot of his father, and fawning compliance would just engender distrust and paranoia. Misa, to her credit, just nodded her head fervently.

 

They weren't far from Akabane Bashi Station, so as they walked in tense silence, Light looked for the FBI agents that L had said would be positioned at the surrounding buildings. Possibly it was due to their covert ops training, but Light could see nothing of note, which was concerning.

 

Matsuda checked his cell phone, but he still didn't have any new notifications or missed calls, and he had seen the others discreetly checking their phones earlier. “Has anyone tried calling L?”

 

Ukita shook his head furiously. “We can't. If he were in a tenuous situation, then that could be dangerous. We'll just have to wait for him to contact us.”

 

“Hold up,” Moegi said urgently. “There's someone hiding around the corner over there.”

 

“Did you see what they looked like?” Aizawa asked, as he gestured for Matsuda and Ukita to move forward and shot Light and Misa a quelling look.

 

Moegi shook his head. “Looked young, but I'm not sure.”

 

Ukita nodded at Matsuda, and then he followed his senior in silently racing around the corner, taking their observer by surprise.

 

“Police! Don't move!” Ukita barked, already holding his gun in ready position. Matsuda hurriedly brought his own up, but it clattered to the ground when his arm dropped to his side, limp from the explosive impact of the large rock against his shoulder.

 

The pain was startling, and he gasped despite himself as he stared at the shivering teenage boy before them.

 

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” the boy cried. “I didn't know you were police. I was worried you were one of them!”

 

“One of what?” Light asked from behind Matsuda, clearly not taking Aizawa's earlier order seriously. Misa clung to his side, but when she saw the blood staining Matsuda's shirt, she let go and rummaged through her purse until she found a snow white handkerchief.

 

“Oh, no,” Matsuda went on auto-pilot and tried to wave it off with his good arm. “I'm fine.”

 

Misa rolled her eyes at him. “Don't be silly. It's made of cambric; it'll staunch the bleeding.” She folded the handkerchief in half and pressed it firmly against his wound. “Right, Light?”

 

Light had picked up the rock from the ground and was examining it. “It's always surprising to see how much damage a rock can cause.” He dropped the rock and took over the first-aid, efficiently removing Matsuda's coat and pulling open the sides of his dress shirt. Matsuda cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It's not severe enough for us to head back for the first-aid kit in the car. We'll use Misa's handkerchief in place of gauze, and you may not need stitches later.”  Light checked his hands and then probed at the lacerated skin.  "There's the potential for swelling though."

 

In the meantime, Ukita was intimidating the boy who had attacked Matsuda. “One of what?” Ukita repeated impatiently. When the boy just gaped, Ukita grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him closer, giving him a good shake. “Damn it, brat!  Tell me what you know!”

 

"Ukita-san!" Matsuda gasped from both the pain and surprise.  He stared at the wild-eyed version of a man who had always shown calm professionalism and a paternal air towards the delinquents they sometimes encountered. 

 

Aizawa looked torn between stopping Ukita's aggression and accelerating the interrogation himself.

 

“I, I don't know,” the boy stumbled over his words. “I don't know what's going on. Just, there were people dressed like secret agents going around, and they grabbed my friend and another guy.” He paused and then spoke nearly inaudibly. “I don't know what happened to them.”

 

Aizawa sighed loudly. He pointed back where they came. “Go in that direction until you see three cars parked together. Wait until we come back; don't do anything rash.”

 

The boy nodded meekly and edged around Ukita-san before he fled.

 

At Light's direction, Matsuda tried to raise his arm in a careful exercise, and his shoulder throbbed painfully beneath his open shirt. Nothing was broken, and the bleeding had stopped, but he could feel the wounded area swelling up. If he tried to fire a gun, his aim would be compromised.

 

“Damn it,” he muttered, and he made his decision. “Light, here.” He held the gun out. “I can't use it, and right now, we need to be as well armed as we can be. I'm sorry to ask this of you, especially since you're a doctor, but—”

 

Light took the gun carefully and stared down at it. Matsuda wondered how a tool of death felt in the hands of a man who worked to protect and prolong life. “If you're sure, Matsuda-san,” Light finally murmured.

 

Matsuda expected Aizawa to veto his decision, but the chief said nothing, and Moegi and Ukita kept their disapproval silent. Matsuda himself didn't have high expectations of Light being able to shoot accurately without training, but this was better than nothing.  These were the circumstances they were in.

 

 

 

Misa's fingers itched, and she rubbed them on the soft denim of her black pants. The reddish stain left behind merely made a shadow against the dark background. Light cast her reassuring glances every so often, but Rem hadn't spoken to her since they left the car, and she could feel a minor headache building in her temples.

 

Misa buttoned Light's jacket half-way up, and the additional warmth helped a bit. Touching the thin stack of Death Note slips hidden in her skirt pocket helped even more. Following Light's suggestion, she hadn't brought the Death Note. Instead, she had carefully cut a page into uniform pieces that she stored in a hidden pocket she had sewn into the flouncy outer panels of her skirt.

 

She had timed herself, writing name after name onto regular paper, late into the night until she could fall into bed, satisfied that she was as ready as she could be for whatever came.

 

“Misa,” Rem had finally said then, breaking the silence that had lain between them for the past few hours. “Remember that they do not have your best interests in mind.”

 

Misa turned over sleepily to face where Rem was hovering near the desk. “I'm not afraid, Rem. I've been waiting so long to find the Savior and to thank him for what he did. Now he needs my help, and I can do something for him. How could I say no?”

 

“The Savior is merely a human called Light Yagami,” Rem said harshly. “His power comes from the Life Note, which makes no distinction between humans. He is no more worthy of its power than any one else, and his kindness resulted from an idle thought years ago.”

 

Misa continued to lie on her side, but she gazed at Rem with eyes wide with fervent devotion shading into unrelenting obsession. “I know I'm nothing special to him right now. That's fine. Light is my god, and I will follow him until I matter to him.”

 

Rem's heartfelt sigh had pierced Misa with some guilt, but it couldn't be helped; Rem just didn't understand.

 

“Something's definitely gone wrong,” Ukita said, and the despair in his voice broke into Misa's own thoughts. She watched him slump against a nearby pole. “This doesn't sound right at all. Why would the FBI attack kids?”

 

“It might have been a case of mistaken identity,” Aizawa answered, though doubt threaded his words. “Everyone is on edge since we have no idea who Kira is. Maybe the kids did something suspicious, and an agent jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

 

Matsuda shook his head. “What if Kira got to them? We know he can control people to a certain extent. Look at what he did to those people we just saw in the downtown square.”

 

Misa, of course, knew full well that a Death Note user could do exactly that, as did Light. Their eyes met briefly, and despite everything, she glowed with the intimate secret that they shared.

 

The glow dispelled upon hearing a familiar, not altogether welcome, voice. “That's unusually prescient of you, Matsuda-san,” L said, emerging from the alley in front of them. “Unfortunately, that's exactly the same situation here with the FBI agents.”

 

“L!” The emotions behind the same call ran the gamut from relieved (Matsuda) to surprise (Moegi and Misa) to irritated (everyone else).

 

They waited for L to add more information. L rubbed thoughtfully at a large dirt smudge on an elbow until Light glared at him. “You left me locked in the car like a child. I'm hoping you had a good reason for that.”

 

“By the time we arrived, I had suspicions that this plan wouldn't work, and I'm pragmatic enough not to find value in risking more lives when just mine would do. The agents at the Station are now under Kira's momentary control before they die, or they are already dead.” L replied. He left off rubbing at the smudge, and Misa realized that it was actually a bruise, like he'd get from blocking a blow with his forearm.

 

Aizawa groaned in frustration. “I knew we should have reconsidered the offer. We could have asked the other prefectures for support. If we had extended our search, we could have found other officers willing to risk their lives to fight Kira instead of relying on a foreign agency.”

 

L shrugged. “What's done is done. Actually, we probably benefited from having two distinct groups working together because our communication systems still remain disparate. I was able to contain the problem by shutting down the lines of communication once I realized where Kira had compromised us. If not for that, most of the people here would probably be dead by now.”

 

“You couldn't contact any of us because if we fell under Kira's control, we'd be able to give up the others,” Light mused calmly. He and L seemed to fall right back into parallel lines of thinking.

 

“So, what happens now?” Misa asked, feeling at loose ends. “What can we do?”

 

L didn't get a chance to answer before they were surrounded by blank-faced men and women aiming guns at their vital organs. “Kira wants to see you,” the leader said, her face and tone devoid of any feeling.

 

Moegi and Ukita looked at Aizawa, and after a long moment, they followed his lead in putting their guns down and holding their hands up. Misa watched Light's lips thin in displeasure as he complied as well. She tried to catch his eye and send him a reassuring look, but he was busy staring at L.

 

 

 

L slouched along, wondering how much time had passed and how much closer it was to the agreed upon time. The moral implications of keeping his knowledge secret were dubious.

 

His gaze traveled from one member of the Kira Task Force to another. He didn't have to worry about Aizawa, given that the man had vowed time and again to give his life in pursuit of Kira, and frankly, it was the same with the police officers that Aizawa had recruited since he had heard they were all volunteers who could have chosen not to join the task force. Still, they had probably believed strongly in the victory of true justice seekers, and no one welcomed death.  This must be a strong emotional blow.

 

Amane Misa was an unknown. L watched Rem float along behind the young woman, the shingami's hollow eyes fastened on on the vulnerable white nape. It was puzzling that Rem hadn't taken Misa away since they were headed towards nearly certain death. Perhaps the shinigami were bound by certain rules that prevented them from forcing humans into involuntary actions.

 

Yagami Light was another issue all together. The young man walked along with the others, cold fury barely restrained down the line of his spine. Dying in a last resort to take down Kira would probably infuriate him. As the owner of the Life Note and a renowned surgeon, Light was used to having control and power. He would accept nothing less than complete victory over Kira, particularly after having been a victim of the pseudo-god himself.

 

L's own emotions about the matter were mixed, given that his own survival would be as null and void as any of the others. His thoughts drifted to the children at Wammy House, the next generation of gifted men and women, one of whom would take over his position (though he didn't think either Mello or Near had risen to the same level as he had when he first started). Regardless of whomever prevailed in the eyes of the Wammy Council, Watari would be there to act as vanguard as he had done for the others who had come before.

 

That morning, the old man had laid out a luxurious breakfast that everyone had picked at, and while L was sipping his overly hot tea and wondering idly if he should have taken Light up on his offer last night, his guardian of many years had briefly put a hand on his shoulder, a fatherly gesture that L had not received since he was considerably younger.

 

L sighed and stared momentarily upwards, picturing the localized bombs that had been implanted in the area as soon as he had hatched this plan with the Kira Task Force.

 

The unspoken benediction had been a comfort and a reminder that Watari would hold vigil alone in the hotel room until 4:00 PM. Unless he received a specific message from L before that hour, Watari would set off the bombs and destroy Akabane Bashi Station and the nearby small streets.

 

L would still hold victory over Kira, and they would be joined in mutual destruction.

 

 

 

Light was never the type to second-guess himself. It would be difficult to have that weakness of personality and stay a surgeon, much less a renowned one. However, though he had not once contemplated taking Ryuk's offer in the intervening years, now he was re-thinking the wisdom of that choice. All those years he owned the Life Note, the numerous lives he had saved, all those people he had given back to the world, he had thought his authority over life and death was near absolute.

 

Now, they were marching into an ill-fated confrontation with Kira, and the power the Life Note had given him was in a different realm from the power Kira possessed from the Death Note. He glanced at Misa, walking alongside him, head tilted down, lost in her own thoughts. Then again, having the power of the Death Note at this point was hardly more useful unless that power could affect another Death Note user.

 

The only thing they had at their disposal that gave them an advantage was Rem's presence, and that was limited to Misa's well-being alone, though Misa's own devotion to Light kept the Shinigami chained to them. His eyes flickered in thought, oblivious to the unsteady fearful breaths of the men around him.

 

Yagami Soichiro had spent his whole life investigating crimes, arresting those who stole, murdered, raped; even when the heart attack symptoms started, his father had, by all accounts, continued to work on the case of a house invasion. In becoming a doctor instead of a police officer and rising to the position of chief like his father, Light had chosen to work for the greater good of society by focusing on the complete opposite of his father.

 

However, Light still remembered studying at night sometimes to a late enough hour that his father arrived home to see his bedroom light on. His father would come up and check on him before reheating the dinner his wife had left for him or even pouring himself a cup of tea. Usually, his father would merely urge him to end his studies and go to sleep, but on other nights, his father would discuss cases that were frustrating or interesting.

 

As Light grew older, his father's perception of him broadened until they could talk as peers, and Light could be proud that he played a vital role in bringing justice to their corrupt world. It was one night like any other when his father arrived home, not just tired but also with a heavy air of despondency. His father spoke very little at first, only giving the usual pleasantries as Light tried to be helpful, reheating the soup and bringing out the side dishes.

 

“Light.” His father finally spoke as he looked into the depths of his tea cup after eating dinner through a clear lack of appetite. “There are some things that I must know as the police chief, and those same things I cannot tell my son because they are confidential.” A heavy sigh preceded the following words: “And sometimes I cannot tell my son because I regret that we had to make some difficult decisions.”

 

His father had not specified what difficult decisions he had to make, but Light could tell himself that his father would understand whatever he had to do now. For the greater good. Even if it meant stepping into the darkness and becoming part of his father's regrets.

 

 

 

Kira was apparently a tall thin man with glasses and shoulder-length hair, wearing a tailored suit, and Light would have picked him out of the crowd if given five chances of identifying Kira. Maybe it was because Light owned the Life Note, but to him, the man had an air of the supernatural. Also an undeniable sense of an insane superiority complex.

 

Light's group paused at the top of the steps leading to the train station's foyer, and the two sides of Justice looked at one another across a distance that was hardly uncrossable but still insurmountable all the same.

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had hoped to post the final chapter a few weeks earlier, but some family issues came up, and it was hard to get into the right mindset for writing.
> 
> I wanted to make the ending suspenseful and interesting, so I didn't want to spell out everything that was going on, but since this chapter is late, and I feel the flow of reading was disrupted, let me just say that I do list a new Life Note rule in this chapter, but this isn't some kind of deus ex machina. I non-explicitly introduced the rule back in Chapter 1.

 

Kira took the prerogative of breaking the silence. “In the end, I suppose it was too much to ask for that I should find another who can uphold the same Justice as I. Though I am curious how much you know, considering some evident truths in the message you sent.”

 

Kira walked forward several feet, past the body of a man dressed in the train station's security uniform. The extra depth to the shadows in certain angles of the walls suggested the bodies of more victims. Light supposed that Kira had found it efficacious to keep only the armed FBI agents alive and under his control before their pre-written deaths.

 

Kira's intense gaze swept slowly across their faces, and his eyes lingered with some surprise on first Light's face and then Misa's. Light's shoulders tensed up. The consequences of Kira recognizing him would be dire; everything he had planned would fall to pieces.

 

Kira's surprise grew into a dark confusion. “Who are you?” He gestured impatiently at Light. “You speak first.”

 

Light's bewilderment grew into incredulous fury once he realized that Kira, like all men grown mad on power, had taken so many lives that he didn't recognize Light at all. Misa pressed against him from behind, and the intimate warmth of her trembling body reminded him that more important things than his pride were at stake.

 

Light gathered his strength at its core and dispersed it to bring the same veil of calm over his mind and limbs that he used when he was in the midst of a difficult surgery. “I'm just a doctor,” Light responded, “I was assigned to this team as a medic.”

 

Kira did not look placated. “Your name is Yagami Light,” he declared amidst horrified gasps that Light's identity had been so easily compromised. “Why are you different? I can see the numbers for everyone.” Kira glared at Misa too. “You are also missing the numbers.”

 

Numbers? Light honestly had no idea what Kira was talking about. Misa's hand shot out and gripped his fingers hard, and a sharp intake of breath preceded words that she immediately stifled. Light carefully did not turn to look at her. So, Kira was referring to something that perhaps only Death Note users could see. Did the numbers perhaps connect to someone's death date? That would have been a power useful to Light too, as the owner of a Life Note.

 

“I don't know what you mean,” Light said finally, “but if I seem different to your eyes, then maybe it's because I almost died two weeks ago, but the Savior brought me back to life. I've been working to further the Savior's plans since then.” There was nothing like taking refuge in near truths.

 

On that note, Light walked boldly up to the fallen security guard's body and began the facade of checking for signs of life. He sincerely hoped Kira wouldn't kill him for his audacity as he automatically rucked up the dead man's fortunately high shirt collar.  Misa took a few timid steps to follow him, but Rem raised her left wing as a barrier, and Misa cast her a dark look before settling.

 

“The Savior?” Kira's voice shook with an undefinable emotion before he visibly took pains to control himself. “And you?”

 

Misa flinched at being addressed. “I, I, also follow the Savior. He saved my—he saved my life several years ago.”

 

Kira's eyes hardened. “And is the Savior working with these men to stop my work? I would have thought that our philosophies are complementary.”

 

Behind the barrier of the dead man's prone body, Light hesitated despite himself.  He had reconciled with his decision last night, or so he had thought; now he was falling into the weakness of self-doubt.  Or was it sentimentality?  It would soon be ten years since his father's death, but he would always be his father's son.  One beat.  Two beats.  He couldn't risk taking longer; he had to make his choice.  Finally, Light slipped out the piece of Life Note he'd prepared specially the night before, and his fingers wrapped around a cool tube of metal as he thanked narrow-minded interpretation that Kira's mind-controlled agents hadn't considered a ballpoint pen to be a traditional weapon.

 

“You're the complete opposite of the Savior!” Matsuda burst out, fear and anger turning into an unwise combination. Next to him, a helpful L kicked him savagely in the knee, and an uncharacteristically wild Matsuda actually shoved L to the ground, causing more of a commotion to fracture Kira's attention.

 

Light just needed one more thing. He held Misa's eyes and urged her to hurry. Her eyes tinted an unholy red as she checked the characters hovering over Kira's head.

 

"Mikami Teru."  Misa's words echoed through the room.  L ceased the struggle with Matsuda, and they watched as Kira whipped around, attention drawn back to Misa and Light, his features drawn into an inhuman snarl.

 

Light wrote quickly into the small space he had left, big enough for just a name.  Adrenaline shot through him as he finished, leaving him cold with the final rush of energy.  His body racked itself with tremors as he watched Mikami Teru begin to jerk and then slowly topple over with a heart attack.

 

Light bowed his head then, the angle of his face masking the brilliant smile that grew and grew into a smirk.  Too late for you, Kira!  Laughter that fed off stark triumph echoed resoundingly in his tight chest.  I win!

 

 

 

_1) To resurrect a life, you must know the person's name and face._

 

_2) You must write their name in the Life Note within 6 minutes from the time of death._

 

_3) If you write the name of a person who is still living, nothing will happen._

 

_4) If you write the name of a living person who will die within two hours, then they will live._

 

_5) You cannot bring back a person who has already died once._

 

_6) If you bring someone back because you love them, you must give your life in exchange._

 

_7) You may give half your life in exchange for the Shinigami Eyes._

 

_8) If the same name is written in the Life Note and Death Note, then the fate inscribed first takes precedence._

 

_9) If you possess the Life Note, your lifespan is not visible to those with Shinigami Eyes._

 

**_10) To resurrect someone from an illness they don't have, they must first endure it._ **

 

 

 

To Light's surprise, he hadn't needed to field any questions from the Kira Team on what had just happened.  Traumatic shock and emotional exhaustion could be so useful, he mused.

 

L, on his part, had also seemed inclined to ride back in silence, pressing a thumb against his lips and staring out the window, steeped in his own tangled thoughts.  No doubt an interrogation would come later, but for now, Light greatly appreciated the still quiet, as he looked out his own window.  He picked out a constellation here and there as he considered how well things had turned out, especially for Kira.

 

Light rubbed his thumb across the slick surface of his belt.  The piece of Death Note that he had cajoled Misa into releasing, despite Rem's vociferous disagreement, was still safe and sound in the slit he had made for it.  He had committed to being the Savior, the bringer of life.  He had chosen not to use it on Kira, but it was a small power that he would be safekeeping.  For who knew the future?

 

The warm blue sky had darkened into sooty black and pinprick stars were peeking out by the time they arrived back in Tokyo.

 

Watari had come to meet them, so Light left the matter of the train station clean up to L's people, and he watched over the men his father had once led.  Light made sure that Matsuda's fiancee had been called and that the man was resting peacefully in the hospital for an overnight observation. He pulled several bills from his wallet after Moegi and Ukita wearily called taxis to go home, waving off their protestations and handing the money directly to the taxi drivers.  Aizawa, he'd last seen holding a stack of paperwork that had promptly been abandoned for a strong drink, or several, at the hotel bar, so he wouldn't worry about the man.

 

Finally, Light went to find L.

 

Light hadn't pegged L for being the kind of person who liked standing around roof tops. It seemed so needlessly dramatic, and actually, that did seem like L. Mr. Kill Me Now If You Can.

 

Light waited for L to turn to him curiously.

 

“I hope arresting one Kira was enough for you, even if he's in a coma. I haven't seen Misa since we got out of the train station, and I'm sure Rem was the reason, so you're not likely to find out where she is now,” Light commented. He didn't find it necessary to mention that Misa had thrown him a promise-filled kiss before Rem's wings enveloped her.

 

“It was difficult enough to arrest Mikami, and unless, Misa decides to follow in his foot steps, I'm going to focus on the crimes committed without supernatural means,” L said dryly.

 

Light stared at him in surprise, but the dissatisfied set of the other man's lips made him smirk. There was no fate worse than boredom for a genius, and Light could predict as clockwork that L would be researching the Death Note and shinigami on the side until he was prepared to deal with them again in future, if needed.

 

They both looked silently into the night sky, content with their own thoughts, until Light heard L huff out a sigh as he straightened up from the railing, clearly ready to call it a night.

 

Light pulled his hand from his pocket and handed L the small rectangle he'd been fingering. “You know, we should have done this at the beginning, but here's my business card.”

 

L took the card and studied it for a moment. “I don't have business cards. They're not a regular part of my work.”

 

“It's fine.” Light shrugged. The thought of L going around with blank white cards merely emblazoned with the usual “L” motif was almost funny in its implausibility.

 

L flipped Light's business card around and then wrote on it with a fountain pen. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Dr. Yagami, but I can find your contact information more easily and quickly than you can find mine.” He handed back the card.

 

Light raised an eyebrow and read the phone number. “I will be very angry if this turns out to be disconnected—or to a candy shop.”

 

L let out a startled, sputtering laugh. “I do change phone numbers often as a matter of routine, but I promise that is the most current number I have. People must be straightforward with their friends.” L's laugh ended, and he gave Light a pointed look. “I wonder if Dr. Yagami believes that.”

 

Light wouldn't pretend that he was a better man than he was, but with Mikami Teru's depressing isolation still fresh in his mind, Light had grown more willing to contemplate his humanity. To place his trust in someone who might understand. “I don't share much of myself with friends, to be honest. But I think we can have a deeper relationship than that. Let's start with you calling me 'Light.'”

 

L hummed thoughtfully as he considered Light's words. Finally, L smiled brightly, eyes lighting up in that eerie way that tugged deeply at something inside Light. “Well, Light, after the day's events, I calculate that our chances of dying horribly are much, much less than 96%. What do you think?”

 

Light leaned in all the way to show L what he thought.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With all the truly incredible feedback that I've gotten for this fic, to my surprise, my creative juices started working overtime this past weekend, and I have written one more chapter for this story.

 

Light didn't know what to expect when he arrived at Mitsui Garden Hotel, as L had requested, and he found the other man waiting for him, holding two tennis rackets.  A small cooler rested next to L's feet, no Watari in sight.

Light raised his eyebrow. 

In response to the unspoken question, L wordlessly offered him his pick of the tennis rackets before leading the way to the back of the hotel, which opened into a large leafy recreation area that combined a garden with a basketball court and a tennis court.  Light could hear voices around them as other hotel guests enjoyed themselves, laughing and talking as they moved around.

Light was no stranger to the crisp air and barely broken morning light, but now he knew while L had proposed such an early hour.

"Favor me with a game, Mr. High School Champion?" L asked, swinging his tennis racket lightly and letting it tap against his thigh.  The athletic motion looked odd, contrasting with the slouch he held himself in.

The motion drew Light's attention and reminded him of the long limbs he had thought about exploring while he drove to the hotel, mind pleasantly idle due to the light traffic.

Still, physical attraction or not, Light was used to being the knowledgeable one in the room, and he did not enjoy the flip side.  "Were you digging into my high school records?" he asked flatly. 

L held his tennis racket by the base of the handle, letting the rounded curve tap against the ground when it dropped.  He cocked his head at Light, feigning potential offense at the accusation.  "Yagami-san really did share a lot about his prodigious son.  Apparently, you were passionate enough about tennis to choose it over the other school clubs."

Light believed that his father did talk about him, but his father also held to professional standards of decorum and was unlikely to overshare.  And L was a nosy bastard in general who probably did investigate all his potential sexual partners like that.

Light was aware of L's evasion, but frankly, if clear and normal boundaries were a deal-breaker for Light, he wouldn't be attempting to form a relationship with someone like L.  And Light was self-aware enough to admit that if he had access to the same informational resources as L, most likely he would be using it to the fullest too.

"I haven't played in a while," Light said, half to himself, "The last time was probably with some hospital board members who wanted to build camaraderie."  And Light had limited himself so that he wouldn't offend anyone.  It had irked him deeply.

"How modest Dr. Yagami is," L commented.  The deliberate blandness of his tone conveyed his mockery.

Light smiled pleasantly in response, his eyelids dipping down as his lips curved.  He was going to make L eat the ground.

 

"How formal do you want to make this?" Light asked, checking his shallow pockets perfunctorily.  He had insisted on having time to change into proper sportswear, and L had shown the good sense not to argue.  He had his wallet on him like usual, but he had always disliked the jangling sensation of coins so he left them behind whenever he could. 

L stepped in close and held up a silver coin.  The side facing Light showed something like a crown with various kinds of flora blooming outwards.  The vaguely familiar crest reminded Light of the currency he had seen during a week-long college trip to London.  "I lived in England during my adolescence."

Light stared in confusion at the non sequitur.  Then realization dawned, and the surge of anticipation and greed hit him hard, inciting a ball of heat low in his abdomen.  Mixed with the heat was a hint of fear in wanting something he had not known he had wanted.

L noted his reaction and smiled in response, his eyes flicking up and down Light's body.  "I appreciate the question, but I think we should come to a mutual agreement, don't you?"

Light nodded slowly as he considered.  So that would be the give-and-take between them.  Why not?

"I call heads," Light said.  He added casually, "The first time I saved someone's life was when I was 17." 

An outsider listening in on their conversation would probably picture a teenage Light diving into a swimming pool and saving a friend from a cramp.  Or something else banal and innocuous.  Exciting in a way that mundane life was. 

The way L made a brief humming sound while his eyes darkened in growing interest showed that he was picturing an entirely different scenario.

Light thought of her sometimes, the poor young woman who had been surrounded by thugs on motorbikes and assaulted so horrifically that the local news stations had, in unspoken agreement, neglected to show any footage of the crime scene.  Grieving his father as he was and balancing his college prep with emotionally supporting his devastated mother and sister, he had still made a point of following up with Matsuda on the men's trials.  Just as carefully, he had kept track of the woman's recovery in the hospital, and when news of her failing health came, Light had written her name so carefully into the Life Note, feeling the stirrings of an almost paternal love as he did so.

"It was so meaningful," Light told L now, their eyes locking.  The memory of his first gift to the world had made him feel generous, and he willingly shared more of himself in hope of an answering call.

L actually shivered then, and Light felt his arousal thrum and grow, spreading thickly through his body.

 

L won the coin toss. 

In return, Light chose to take position in the side of the tennis court adjacent to the swimming pool.  The slight smell of chlorine drifted in the air and reminded him even more strongly of his high school years.  Besides tennis, Light had also spent considerable time mastering the different swimming styles.  His younger self had regarded swimming as a rather vital life skill.  After all, what if he happened to fly on an airplane that broke down in the middle of an ocean?  His father and mother had laughed heartily at the idea, though they quickly stifled their reaction upon seeing his insulted expression.  Light mostly remembered the conversation because his parents had looked at him with such surprised and indulgent love in their eyes--something he had often seen directed towards Sayu, but much, much less often towards himself.

The sharp smack of the tennis ball called his attention back to the tennis game with L, and Light watched as L continued to methodically bounce the tennis ball up and down, up and down.  Light preferred to serve whenever he was the winner of the coin toss, and he supposed L must be the same.  However, being the recipient of someone else's initiative wouldn't stop Light from taking the upper hand as it suited him.

"One point, one question and answer?" L put forth.

"Agreed," Light said.

L promptly brought his racket up and served the ball so firmly and powerfully that it whistled through the air and past Light's disarmed guard.  The ball bounced gently away behind him, rolling into the grassy edge.

Eyes wide and mouth somewhat ajar, Light struggled to gather the tatters of his self-possession. 

"I was a junior tennis champion back at home," L said, possibly his way of making amends, though the sly twist of his mouth suggested that he had enjoyed the blow to Light's confidence.

"Nice of you to share," Light said tersely.

"Yes," L agreed simply before pushing into their confirmed terms.  "Have you met others like Rem before?"

Secrecy was an intrinsic part of Light's makeup, and he had to exert effort not to break a tenuous connection by giving a falsehood when only the truth could suffice.

"Yes," Light admitted finally.  He thought of the shinigami's strange grotesque features and obnoxious personality.  "His name was Ryuk.  He actually made me the same offer he later made to Mikami."

It was L's turn to look shocked, though to his credit, he didn't bother asking what Light had decided.  It was, after all, quite obvious.

Light went after the ball and returned it to L with a quick toss.

The rhythm of the game began in earnest then, and neither racket slowed until the slanting rays of sunlight and the growing number of guests around indicated the lateness of the morning.

 

Light drank thirstily from the icy bottle of water until the fast tempo of his blood rushing slowed to a more moderate one.  He spilled some of the cold water onto the sweat band on his arm, and he rubbed it across his forehead and over the back of his neck. 

L wandered up, his own bottle of water half-empty and dangling from a languid hand.  The mild spikiness of his hair told Light that he had done some similar cooling down. 

Light wanted a shower desperately.  The exhaustion he felt was partly from the energetic tennis game, but he also felt a bone-deep weariness that came from sharing intimate information despite the fear of exposure.  He pulled his shirt collar away from his throat, sighing softly, and L's eyes snapped to the hollow of his throat.

"I have a hotel room here," L said, without looking up into Light's eyes.  "You're welcome to use the shower."

Light touched the gently heaving chest in front of him, hand wrapping around one shoulder and his thumb settling into the hollow of L's own throat.  "Thank you, I will."

They stood still in their respective poses, silent for a long moment, before they turned away as one, L retrieving the cooler and Light picking up both rackets and stuffing the tennis ball into one of the out-sized pockets in the thin jacket he put on.

 

Light walked next to L as they silently made their way through the hotel foyer and into one of the elevators.  L selected the button for the top floor before leaning heavily back against the glass and metal wall opposite to Light and closing his eyes.  Light watched him, and despite himself, a flicker of disappointment was growing.  Light wasn't the type to pursue the matter when the other person wasn't interested, but his enervation had disappeared with the brisk walk, and now all the drive he had felt during the tennis match was returning.  He wanted very much to touch the body that housed the mind he found so intriguing.

The elevator dinged, and L opened his eyes.  Light wasn't an adolescent suffering through the agony of a first crush, so he didn't pull his gaze away.  "Which suite number?" he asked.

"#2," L said after a pause.  He pressed the base of his wrist against his forehead and then curled both hands into the front pockets of his jeans, an ambiguous gesture that could mean his annoyance or avoidance.

Light nodded, and he let L precede him out of the elevator while he began the extremely unpleasant task of unpacking the idea that perhaps he had been approaching this encounter with a different intention from L.

L dropped the cooler onto the floor and took the equipment from Light, placing them haphazardly against a nearby wall.  He glanced around the room before heading straight for the kitchenette.  His voice echoed back flatly.  "Housekeeping should have left fresh towels."

With that warm welcome, Light resolved to take a quick shower and then leave to salvage his pride.  The bathroom was immense, with both a shower and a bath tub taking up well-used space.  A short wall separated the two.  The shower stall turned out to be one of those technologically complex ones that, if properly adjusted and coaxed, would level both a uniform waterfall of water and targeted sprays that helped to soothe taxed muscles.  Light leaned his forehead against the shower wall and let himself unwind.  After a while, he heard the soft rustle of clothing falling to the ground and the pattern of thumping feet on the other side of the wall.  At the gush of water, he turned to see the top of a dark head sinking down as L apparently abandoned the kitchenette for the bath tub. 

The humiliated edge to his disappointment returned, and Light had to remind himself that a god did not suffer from petty desires.  Nor would a god fume over something that hadn't even been explicitly promised.  He was beyond such things.

 

To his displeasure, L was already out of the tub and dressed in one of the hotel bathrobes when Light came out, dried off and back in his original morning outfit. 

A small bowl of half-eaten ice cream (still a mostly perfect sphere) lay at L's elbow, and Light watched curiously as the man ignored the treat to focus on something else.  The long pale fingers worked skillfully over a small hill of candy wrappers, turning each one into a miniature geometric shape.  L was turning one into a pyramid when he turned to look at Light.

The shower had done wonders for Light's state of mind, and refreshed from his mental tumult, the sight of a literal hill of wrappers combined with what he had observed from L earlier (symptoms, he now realized) brought his diagnostic side to the forefront.

"You were suffering from low blood sugar."

L shrugged in open admission.  "Sometimes it happens.  I'm not in the best of health."

Light came over and sat down in the winged arm chair across from L.  He picked up a diamond and turned it around in his fingers.  He really had to admire the deftness of hands that could fold such art since he lacked the skill himself.

"Do you want to have sex?"

Light's head jerked up from the origami.  A blunt 'yes' hovered in front of his mouth, and then long-held desire brought him to the other side of the table where he gave his answer without a word.

L's mouth was warm beneath his, and he could taste the bittersweet profile of high-quality dark chocolate still lingering behind the lips he had touched just once before.  They kissed like that, lips pressing together and then brushing softly and then coming back again from a different angle.  Then their mouths opened as they began to kiss more deeply.  The rational part of Light not subsumed into the physicality of what they were doing was elated that their mental chemistry correlated with their apparent sexual chemistry.  He attempted to get closer only to find L's knees and shins an incidental barrier, raised up as they were in his usual seating position.

L's fingers smoothed down his cheekbone to his chin and separated their mouths.  "The bedroom is not far."  The shallow breaths L took after this statement were very promising to Light's ears.

 

They piled the extra pillows onto the nearby writing table and pulled the elaborate comforter down until all that was left were the crisp white sheets.  After toeing off his shoes and pulling off his socks, Light began unbuttoning his dress shirt until halfway, and then he pulled it over his head, along with his undershirt, leaving both pieces on the floor while he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants.  Throughout the laborious task of undressing, he could catch long glimpses of L easily untying the loose knot at his waist and pulling off his robe where it crumpled at his bare feet.

L was sitting on the bed and watching with interest by the time Light was removing his briefs.  He hesitated, debating, and then finally, took off the watch he'd inherited from his father and placed it carefully on the bedside table.  He rare wore the watch, preferring to keep it for special occasions, and just as he was reluctant to tarnish his father's possession, he was also reluctant to risk a cold metallic interruption to pleasurable intimacies.  

Light joined L on the bed, settling into the body heated space by his side.  L kissed him, hand curved around his face where it began stroking around his temple and fingering the longer strands of his hair. 

"I like your body," L said, their lips barely apart, the saliva cooling and then heating as they breathed on each other, incapable of leaving more than an inch between them.

With another partner, Light would have smiled enticingly and given a compliment in return.  Light knew how to wield sweet words with a desirous gaze for best results, but with L, Light didn't bother; he just let out his demand.  "I want to see yours."

L propped himself against a pillow so that he could lie down at an incline.  He took Light's hand and placed it on his stomach, and then he let go, relaxing his limbs across the bed.

Light moved his hand up to caress each arm before moving down to caress each leg, taking his time to feel the warmth and texture of the fine-boned hands and slightly arched feet.  He noted the hardness of each nipple, and he brushed his mouth across in greeting before he placed soft kisses against the open throat above.  The sweat collecting in the hollow wet his lips before he continued on his path to exploring more and more intimate areas.  He lay his hand flat on L's stomach, which heaved rapidly from the aroused breaths that Light took pride in having elicited.

"I have my most recent STD results in the car," Light told L's hipbone intimately, waiting for a response before touching the man's cock.

L shifted his leg under the pressure and reached down to bring Light's face up.  "I gave blood for a test, but the results won't be for a while."

There was nothing in his face or voice to make Light doubt his sincerity.  "Maybe next time," Light breathed out before incentivizing the suggestion with a trailing kiss over sensitive bare skin.  L shuddered, and Light let his smirk grow noticeably before pulling away.

Then he moved over to the side of the bed with the nightstand and shook out a foil packet from the small box he found.

 

L's right knee almost collided with his head again.  "Sorry," L murmured, just audible above the gentle hum of the air purifier.  He stretched out the offending leg before angling to tuck it underneath Light's thigh.

"If you kick me up there, it'll be the most murderous you've ever seen me," Light forewarned, letting prior knowledge inform L of the potential danger, before dropping back down to continue.  He held L's other knee still, letting his lips curve into a smile of his own as he felt the tremors of L's laugh.

He stroked the soft exposed skin below, taking time to rub his thumb again and again across a spot that had gotten him strong reactions before while he continued the heart-pounding rhythm with his mouth.  He increased the pressure and pace moderately and measured the matching pulse throbbing beneath the thin layer of latex.

The growing pattern of sporadic and sustained gasps above encouraged him to continue with his current medley, and when L finally pressed hard against his shoulder blade, short nails still managing to leave their bite, he braced himself against the bed and tightened his grip on the thigh he'd been holding captive.  L struggled against him for a long moment, a noise of completion tearing itself from his throat, before he fell back against the pillow, eyes tightly closed as he dug his nails more deeply into Light before relaxing gradually.  His stomach muscles remained tense a moment longer, but he grew coherent enough to brush his fingers across Light's shoulder in apology.  Light could tell the marks would redden and sting, but he wondered hungrily if they would last until they were remade. 

After taking some time to regulate his breathing, Light let his partner recover while he made a quiet trip to the trashcan and the bathroom.  He threw a few unused tissues into the trash can to obscure the bottom as a courtesy to the hotel room staff, and he offered L the other glass of water.

He swiped a hand across his mouth and rubbed his tired jaw muscles, remembering that he still kept a stick of lip balm in his car's glove compartment.  He would have to make use of it later.

L drank half the glass before balancing it with studied care on the dresser.  He pressed a thumb against his lips and focused his dark eyes between Light's legs.  "Do you want the same from me?"

Light considered it.  His interest vacillated from L's mouth to his hands.  The well-formed hands Light had been admiring the whole day.

"No," Light decided in the end.  "I want you to put your hands on me."

 

It felt as good as Light had been anticipating, and Light acknowledged that asking for L's hands had been the right choice, but even as he enjoyed the curl of long fingers around his cock, the pressure of another talented hand making heated circles low on his back, he felt the momentum of his interest stagnating.  He found himself mentally detaching, and the feeling of distance started growing inexorably, and he began to regard the hands on him as an imposition. 

When this happened, Light normally had two ways of reacting, depending on his mood.  If he actually had something better to do, he would find a way to fake an emergency and leave his partner behind, a little ruffled but unable to truly be insulted.  It helped that most people this generation had no idea how pagers worked.  If Light still did want to get off, which was rarer, then he'd turn away from his partner and take hold of himself.  When he'd finished, he'd kiss his partner passionately and tease them that they were taking too long.  Generally, the woman or man in question would be so flustered and self-conscious that he'd be able to leave soon after with little complaint.

Before Light could decide how this little interlude was going to end, L stopped his movements, and he stared at Light.  He didn't look confused or upset or angry; instead, he looked curious, his head tilted in analysis.  "You don't like this."

"Of course I do," Light lied without hesitation.  He wrapped his hand around the one L was using to hold his cock.  "You have very talented hands."

L didn't break the stare.  Instead, he removed his hand from Light's back and pulled the other one out from under Light's.  Light tensed and wondered if L was actually offended enough to leave or perhaps start a fight.

L reached around to the back of Light's neck and pressed him closer firmly, despite Light's stiff acquiescence to the motion.  They were of a height, so Light's forehead touched L's for a moment until L began to coax him downward until his face was against L's neck.  "You have a very talented mouth," L finally said, a teasing note appearing in his previously somber tone.

Taking the blatant hint, Light kissed the stretch of skin before him, licked the long cords that vibrated slightly beneath his touch.  But he received no particular response from L himself.  Light narrowed his eyes at the vulnerable body part in front of him, and he began placing little open-mouthed kisses, sensuous bits of suction that he started on the curve below an ear and methodically followed to a sharp collarbone.  The noises he started to hear confirmed for him that L was definitely reminiscing about his talented mouth.

He tilted L's neck to the other side and began kissing it there too, this time adding teeth, causing little pinpricks of rawness alongside the soothing softness of his tongue. 

L kept his other hand on Light's back again, but this time, he stroked up and down Light's spine, and whenever Light's mouth reached a pleasurable spot, he would let out a soft sound and pull Light closer for a moment before letting go. 

Light was so focused that it took him a while to realize that his hips were thrusting against L, pushing desperately into the man's palm as he learned Light's preferred rhythm.  L curled his fingers a little tighter around the base, careful of tugging on any uncovered hairs, but gentled his touch near the tip, letting Light's own movement stimulate the sensitive nerve endings there.

When Light finally felt the pressure build and threaten to release in the familiar agonizing way, he stilled L's hand and urged the grip tighter.  His hips jerked hard several times, and he moaned lowly in satisfaction against L's neck as he felt L's body arch against his sympathetically.  

 

The light shining through the windows cast narrow shadows through the curtains and annoyed Light into opening his eyes.  He lay still for a moment, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings.  He turned his head, realizing that he had fallen asleep on his stomach, an unusual position.  L was awake too, lying on his side and facing Light.

He was running his fingers over the lasting marks Light had left.  "You really are a control freak," L commented mildly.

"That's rich, coming from you," Light muttered, not completely fairly, a little grumpy at being woken.  Sleep was a rather precious commodity for him.

L looked contemplative, fingers sweeping over a bruise disappearing over his collarbone.  "I should have expected it, considering."

"It's not a fetish," Light said coldly.

"I didn't think it was," L said distantly, clearly still preoccupied with the connections he was making.  "But you do derive a lot of satisfaction from influencing others.  Once I realized that part of your personality, I really didn't have to find actual evidence of you being the Savior.  It was so obvious."

Light rolled his eyes.  "Back to that topic again?  Let me guess; you're the type that likes talking about work in bed."

L looked a bit surprised.  "The Savior is intrinsic to you.  I can hardly think of you without considering all aspects of you."

Light inhaled sharply at the perceptive words, and the striking sound caught L's full attention.

He looked directly into Light's eyes, and whatever he saw there persuaded him to pull Light towards himself, the heat slowly returning and then rebuilding with increasing force between them.

 

The next time they met at the hotel, L broke away from the heated kissing to open the main drawer in the nightstand and pull out a thin stack of papers.  He handed them to Light whose confused irritation fell aside as he realized the packet was a redacted but still very relevant health report.  L sat back against the headboard, legs stretched out comfortably as he gestured his willingness to wait.

Light read it through rapidly, more grateful for his above-average reading speed than he had ever been in his life, before he smiled slowly at L and slid a hand around his nape to resume their embrace.

 


End file.
